I saw a bear.

a real. live. walking. brown. bear!

I've lived in North America for almost 10 years now and it took me that long to see a bear.  When I lived in Canada, and went to such places like Banff, Whistler the Muskoka etc, I really expected that I would see one.  I mean on tv, they show up all the time...  I even dragged Bryce to the dump one time in Ontario just to see if we could see any bears...

Last weekend we took Bryce's mum, Cathy to Yosemite, as she had NEVER been!  It was my 4th time and each time it never fails to surprise me.

The pictures just don't do it justice - you just have to see it for yourself.

Bryce and his mum

Mirror Lake had water in it this time, and the weather was perfect.

Ta da!  Cathy, Bryce and Mabel

Bryce, Mabel and me

Mabel trying out her water shoes in the lake.

Who needs pants or shoes anyway...

On the bus

 We camped at Camp Curry,

in those infamous tents...

and they were awesome!

We ate dinner at the fancy place

 where Mabel perfected her birthday candle blowing skills

 Oh look, a bear!

 Just kidding...  we really did see a bear.

We saw a small crowd of people looking and pointing across a field as we were walking back to our tent, and then I looked over and saw a flash of brown.  I was so excited I wasn't scared at all...  Bryce and I, and 2 other guys started walking over and following him.  Not too closely (obviously) but enough so I could grab a few pictures.  He knew we were there, but wasn't really interested.  We watched him gathering food from branches and he just toddled along.  It was amazing to see such a huge creature in the wild!  

and we lived to tell the tale :)

What's your favourite part of Yosemite?

yosemite - day 1

I've been trying to share these photos with you for a few days now, but blogger has been giving me a hard time - has anyone else been experiencing blogger gremlins???

anyway, as I mentioned before my cousin Deb came to visit us the other week and we took a couple of days off to take her and her friend Adam to Yosemite. We packed up the campervan and headed out

it didn't take long for these guys to fall asleep
Coop decided Bryce's lap was the place to be
Deb proving just how asleep Adam was...
I kept myself entertained by taking lots of photos (as usual)
You might remember this place from photos I took here but there were no clouds this time
this one inspired a painting, which I'll get around to eventually - love the lines of the shoreYosemite is a pet friendly park, but you have to keep pets on paved roads, and since we had some hiking planned we checked Cooper and McKenzie into the doggy spa, which was kind of along the way - but we got a little lost... I was kinda glad, as it gave me an opportunity to take a better photo of this great little shed painted as the US Flag :)
and on we drove...
our campervan is a 1982 vintage and a diesel, so goes about 60 miles (96 kms) per hour at the absolute maximum. so with a full load and many hills to climb she's a slow ride...
but all the better to enjoy the views! :)
and finally we were there
this lady was awesome, when I asked for a photo - I'm sure she gets it all the time, the poor thing... but those hats are just too good to resist!
arriving on a Thursday was a really smart idea, as there were not that many people around (even approaching a long weekend)these rocks never cease to amaze me

I think we'll definitely take bikes with us next time we go - it's the perfect way to get around Yosemite Village, but if you don't want to bring yours, you can always rent them there.

Deb taking in the sites

me taking in the sites :P
we took the canoe with us, and this would have been the place to put her in I think, but we just ran out of time...
last time we were there everything was white and icy, but now at the end of summer the water levels were pretty lowhandsome man :)
handsome van!
there are a few places to camp in the village, upper pines, lower pines, and north pines, but they book out months in advance (apparently), and then there's camp 4 which is on a first come first in basis. people start lining up there at 8:30am. this is tent camping only so wasn't for us.

we camped at Tamarack Flat which is about 30mins out of the valley, so off we went
up some more hillsthrough some mountains of rock
and past some more amazing scenery...

when we arrived we found this guy/girl? hanging out at the bathrooms
so pretty
and made ourselves a home for the night
our campsite was awesome! sheltered by our neighbours by these massive rocks. (that brown box in the foreground is a bear box, where you had to store all your food so the bears didn't come into your car looking for it)
which of course the boys had to climb

doesn't this rock look like a whale coming out of the water?
adam on the nose of the whalebut someone forgot his beer... nice action shot of Deb throwing Adam a beer because that's what good friends do :)
but oops, someone forgot to bring said beer bottle down with them... (we made him go get it later, don't worry)
Adam decided his talent was pyromaniac - he liked to light fires!
after dinner, and drinks we made smores by the fire
and some fire art

with a big day ahead it was time to call it a night. this was the first time we'd slept 4 people in the campervan (Deb and Adam slept up in the annex) and I thought it would be a bit cozy, but it wasn't too bad at all!