It was overcast on Saturday, when we were supposed to go, so we swapped our days around and went on Sunday instead. This meant that I didn't teach this weekend, since I kept the whole weekend open just in case. Whatever, sometimes working 50+ hours a week isn't what you want to do. Sometimes you just want to drive 7 hours round trip to a beautiful place to sit in the cold all day.
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| Tunnel view |
But Yosemite was so worth not teaching and not seeing TC (sorry pony). It's about a 3 hour drive from my house depending on traffic and there is zero excuse as to why I'm not going there all the time.
The night before, I made us pumpkin pasties from my awesome HP cookbook (bff is also a big HP fan and we were super giddy about them) and picked up some snacks at the store. We also stopped for fruit at Safeway because bff likes to try to be healthy (then four hours into our time at Yosemite, she turned and looked at me and said "I WANT CHOCOLATE" and I said "ME TOO WHAT IS WRONG WITH US?").
Once into the park, we headed straight to tunnel view because I begged for it. I was desperate to get some pictures there and have bff show me how to use my camera. On the one hand, I love having a photographer best friend because she's so patient with me as I go through all the buttons on my camera and she tells me what all of them do/how to use them. But then she is a bad influence because merely being in her presence makes me want to spend my entire savings account on a new camera so it can do more things.
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| The before shot, not much red in there |
After tunnel view, we headed down to see Horsetail Falls. Now, before I go into detail, let me tell you why we decided that driving up to Yosemite in one day, not getting back til after 10 the night before work, was something that we thought was a good idea.
Once a year in the last couple weeks in February, the sunset hits the falls in a way that makes it look like it's on fire. The falls get really red and bright and it looks like lava is streaming down the mountain. Unfortunately for everyone but me, who had no idea what this was until bff asked me if I wanted to go, for the last FIVE years because of the drought, there hasn't been enough water coming down off the mountain in February for this to happen. This was the first year we've had the water for this to happen, yay!
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| Glowing. It looks photoshopped! I mean it is, but not completely. |
Apparently every photographer that ever was ALSO read the blog post. For a span of at least a mile, possibly longer, cars were parked along the road. We got a surprisingly decent spot and headed out to the coordinates, which we didn't need on us since everyone and their mother was already there.
Now, this was at 12:30 in the afternoon. Sunset was at 5:30. Getting there FIVE HOURS EARLY did get us a somewhat decent spot, not like the people arriving at 4 who had to barge through the millions of dollars of equipment and the many people swearing at them under their breath. And we had snacks and hadn't hung out in two weeks since I was so sick, so we made due. Both of us are introverted and not fans of crowds, so we struggled a bit, but everyone was generally really nice- a couple of guys making small talk with us here and there, and people making jokes to the crowd.
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| It was a bit yellowish at first... |
Five hours later the clouds rolled in and, while we did get some of the fire effect, it wasn't AS good as it was apparently the night before, where it had been cloudy all day and then cleared right before sunset. Damn, we could have been there for that! Oh well.
Leaving was exciting, since everyone wanted to leave at once. It actually wasn't that bad- once as you're IN the car, you don't have to be smooshed next to a bunch of people, some of which think that it's acceptable to SMOKE in a national park known for having a fire problem, WTF. So it was nice to get in the heat and out of the crowd, even if then we had to navigate out of the park and weren't lucky to get behind the car with Finding Nemo playing in the back seat.
Coming out of the park, there's a road you have to go down that's SUPER steep. Apparently most people take another road? I dunno, I was not paying attention. I was going through my camera looking at all the pretty pictures when I noticed that while everyone was turning right, we had turned off the road to the left. The only thing I knew was that we were surrounded by cliffs so I basically thought bff was just murdering us.
But no, just going down that road. Didn't stop me from shrieking and being suddenly pumped full of adrenaline. Bff thought that was hilarious but she felt bad for scaring me.
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| Then we got the real lava-pouring-off-the- mountain look- I gotta redo this picture since the mountain is too dark but figured I'd show you guys |
We got to my place a little before 10pm, so I longed my cat (if I don't play with her before I go to sleep, she runs through the house and uses me as a springboard) and jumped into bed. I was absolutely exhausted at work on Monday but man was it worth it.
I'm still working on all the pictures, I just kind of went through for fun and found shots for this post. Really hoping to blow up my tunnel view shot and mayyybe one of the Horsetail Falls shots to have more of my own photography in my apartment! It's not the best work in the world, but it's mine and I like being reminded of all the cool places I've been when I stare at my walls.
Planning more photography adventures with bff, including her patented star trails over tunnel view, night pictures at Pinnacles (plus the 11 mile hike I had wanted to do last time I was there), and making another trip down to Big Sur.
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| By far my favorite Big Sur shot, I need to blow this shit up and stick it on the wall too |
Today is ultrasound day. My boss had me switch my WFH day from Friday to today, which to me was a bummer because it means I have to squeeze visiting TC into my schedule on Saturday morning (instead of Friday afternoon), which means every day for two weeks I'm waking up to an alarm. Boo. Oh well. It's worth it to see my pony.
Fingers crossed that I can bring my pony home soon! But not too soon... I want it to be warm and NOT raining when he comes back. After this, there's a chance I only have FIVE more visits (if he comes home in April) or, more likely NINE more visits (if he comes home in May). Both of those seem so close! I'm also fine with thirteen more visits, which puts him home in June. If it's later than June I'd be disappointed. I'm eager to have the whole summer with BRH trainer so that going into winter, I feel really confident.
