Well, it rained. For the first time in the years we’ve been coming here the rain came down in sheets. We’re staying in lower pines, which is kind of like being packed in to watch a drive-in movie. Tents slumping into the muddy earth, wispy clouds tumbling over the glacial peaks, the early morning call of a camper warning that a bear is wandering nearby — that’s what it’s been like. It’s been cold, too. Waking up and finding fingers warm enough to strike the stick match and light the portable stove to boil the water that gets poured into a melitta filter with ground French Roast from Starbucks was more difficult than I thought it would be.

But there is no replacing the hot, creamy coffee in the mouth on a cold morning like that. Because of the smog in the valley, morning fires have been banned, so we we either stay in our tents until the sun warms the earth or we stand outside, make the coffee and deal. We have no right to complain, in fact, as there are flush toilets, showers and roads all nearby. This is not roughing it. But one becomes accustomed to creature comforts and I realize I am accustomed to them. I like my own place, my warm apartment, my high speed internet connection.

Today we have rented bikes and we’re planning on tooling around the village all day to see what kind of trouble we can get into. We might even find our way up to Mirror Lake. It’s not Greasy Lake but it’ll do. It’ll do.

My friend Rain Perry wrote a great song called Yosemite (purchase here from Amazon – which I now prefer compared to itunes) that compares a rough growing up to Yosemite.

Yosemite

Behind the backstop
And at the breakfast table
On the school bus
And other assorted torture chambers
The temperature drops
The snow falls
The glacier forms

Ten thousands tons of ice
Are crushing you
Into a beautiful, one-of-a-kind boy
The thaw will come
And you will be
Yosemite
Year by year
Hour by hour
Insults scrape
Lonelinesses scour
Leaving erratics
And striations
A glacial terrain
Ten thousand tons of ice
Are crushing you
Into a beautiful, one-of-a-kind boy
The thaw will come
And you will be
Yosemite

I’ve seen the brightest sparks
Glowing from the faces
Of my friends whose lives have been
The biggest mess
They don’t make landmarks
Out of ordinary places
Only landscapes that have seen
The most distress

Someday you’ll dare
To open your heart
And you’ll melt one like mine
Because you are worth knowing
Worth loving
After all

Ten thousand tons of ice
Are crushing you
Into a beautiful, one-of-a-kind boy
The thaw will come
And you will be
Yosemite

Rain’s wonderful song is really the one to play as your car moves through the windy, tree-crowded road into Yosemite valley. Either that or a recording by ceo (aka, angels singing really loudly). This will be our third trip up there, where the water is clean and the mountains mighty. The waterfalls are said to be their most swollen because of the snowmelt. This is a good thing but it also means we can’t river raft. We’ve only been able to do it once in three years and it was the most fun we ever had up there.

In fact, I sold my brother-in-law on going with us on this very notion. Now I’ve had to coax him with promises of spit hot dogs and beer.

Yosemite valley is a curious mix of too many people, too many hungry bears and a very diligent ranger staff. Let’s not forget the swarming mosquitos. It is a vacation, still, right out of another decade, like you can imagine hitching up the Airstream to your ’55 Chevy and making the long trek up there, pitching your pup tent and having a regular ’50s vaca.

The too many people part is really going to hit home THIS year because we’re staying in the valley below rather than the upper site, Wawona. We wanted to experience it for once — even if it’s more crowded. This is where I myself had my best Yosemite experience as a teenager wherein I had my first kiss.

Yosemite, or any kind of camping trip, is much more fun if you’re a kid. My sisters and I were lucky enough that other families took us camping every summer to different lakes. They did all of the cooking and planning packing. We just had to show up and have a good time. This is why I always insist on letting my daughter and her friends have fun while I slave over the hot stove, scrub out the egg pans, sweep out the tent — you know, women. It always comes down to women keeping the thing going. Men tend to be good at firewood and pitching tents.

The menfolk going this year include our old friend Robert, who has gotten the reservation every year so far and managed to get five nights in the valley, and my brother-in-law, who is joining us for the first time this year. We’re all hoping for a stress free week and a half.

And that, my friends, is that. I shall see you on the other side (as always, hoping this isn’t my final blog entry so that it must hover here long after I’m gone and some poor asshole will have to decide whether to keep it up here or not. One hopes one’s last words are going to be profound — excuse the melodrama here in the final moments of this posting — it’s not like I”m going to Mt. Everest. But last words are never profound are they. They’re more like “water please?” Or “Oh fuck!” Or “hold my beer.”