Final Preparations

We had a good Memorial Day weekend even though Jarrett ended up going into work on Memorial Day itself. We did our five-mile trek around the base of Stone Mountain on Saturday morning, and took a break with about a mile left to go to eat lunch and let Elsa run around some. They have a great 12-and-under park, which I mentioned in this previous post, and Elsa had a good time running around and exploring... and building her "mountain." You will hear in the video below that Jarrett finally figured out what our little girl is building. Between her building of mountains on our camping trips and hikes and her creations of waterfalls in the bathtub, I think Elsa is about as ready for our big departure this Friday as her parents are.

Sadly, we are somewhat discouraged as of this afternoon, though, as it seems Spring is about a month behind out West, and therefore the snow is not melting nearly as fast as we would like. Conditions on many of the trails we were hoping to hike our first week in Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks are still wintry, and some of the trails are even closed. Half Dome in Yosemite -- Jarrett's big hike that is to take place on Father's Day -- is still closed. They haven't put the cables in place because there is still snow enroute. Those who purchased permits to hike it this coming weekend are receiving a refund. Our big family hike, the Four-Mile Trail, in Yosemite, is also closed due to snow. Tioga Road, the road that is to get us from Yosemite Valley to Tuolumne Meadows for our third week, remains closed as well. You can forget Tuolumne Meadows Campground.

We already somewhat expected the need to alter our plans that third week, although we were definitely still holding out hope based on how things were coming along with the Tioga Road clearing a week or two ago, but now it looks like we really need alternate plans that week. And now to be discouraged over the first two weeks is quite saddening. We are still trying to remain in good spirits. There is so much to do out in California, and a decent amount of things we were planning to do that we will still be able to make happen. I think it is just a matter of sitting down tonight and really planning out and researching some alternate routes, and then just continuing to hold out hope for our original schedule.

Otherwise, we are really ready to do this on Friday. Many an errand has been run this week. I am currently busy doing laundry and readying our house so our friends can stay here while we are away. Jarrett is on vacation as of the end of the work day today. Our bags will be packed (for the second time) tomorrow. And off to the airport we will go on Friday morning.

Regardless of where the road may lead us over these next few weeks, the going is bound to be good.