I was signed up for a photography class (In the Steps of Ansel Adams: Seeing Artistically through Your Camera) in the afternoon, so I left Jarrett and Elsa back at the campsite and headed again to the Village to the Ansel Adams Gallery. The class ended up being an hour-and-a-half of technical talk inside, and two-and-a-half hours of meandering through the Valley, going to sites where Ansel took some of his famous shots (and there was some more technical stuff thrown in there too). The classroom portion of the class took place in Ansel's old darkroom, located behind the Gallery, which was pretty cool. The class was great. I learned A LOT about using my digital camera (actually learning to read the histograms, learning to spot meter with the digital camera to utilize Ansel's famous Zone System in the digital world, learning how to be sure I am using the greatest number of pixels in my images, etc.). It is funny because I was actually hoping we wouldn't end up in a classroom, but I ended up walking away with so much valuable information that it probably ended up being the most important part of the class for me. I guess I lucked out too, as the instructor I ended up with is the only instructor that incorporates all of the technical speak into the class. I also learned a decent amount about Ansel. He took most of his photos from the side of the road, often from on top of his car (there are a decent number of photos out there showing him do this), and was known to spend years and years in the darkroom, perfecting his prints before he settled on a final product. It took him 20 years to perfect Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico. And the instructor made it a point to show that working in a program such as Photoshop is really no different (unless you go to crazy extremes, obviously) than dodging and burning in the darkroom. This made me feel better about my photos. I often get caught up in thinking that I need to get the perfect shot the first time, through the camera-- that using an editing program is cheating. But our instructor said he did not believe a perfect print could ever come about without at least a little tweaking. It was really interesting to see "straight prints" of some of Ansel's photographs, and then see the final version post darkroom edits. The differences were huge. So if Ansel never had the perfect straight print, how could I?
It sounded like Jarrett and Elsa had a good time while I was away too. They took a bus ride just for the fun of it (fun for Elsa anyway), walked around some, and played catch with her rubber purple ball that Daddy purchased for her at a grocery store on our way into the parks. She was in a great mood when I got back, and the best news was that though Jarrett had planned to take her back to the clinic while I was gone (since she was still running a fever that morning, nearly 48 hours after our first visit), he didn't end up doing so because she was fever-free after her nap. So we put her to bed without Motrin and thought all was finally okay... until this morning.
This morning we cooked a pancake and bacon breakfast and then headed over to Curry Village for a children's theater production. She seemed a little fussy, but I figured that was due to the fact that she woke up at 5:15 a.m., again asking for juice, and then didn't really ever go back to sleep, even with me moving down there with her. Well, when we got back to the campsite and I changed her diaper, I noticed a rash had developed all over her torso and even some on her face and up the back of her neck. She also still had a fever of about 100.5. I suspected roseola; Jarrett suspected a reaction to the antibiotic (amoxicillin). We immediately went back to the clinic, and it turned out Jarrett was correct. We got a different nurse practitioner this time, who was somewhat skeptical that Elsa actually had an ear infection until she looked in her left ear and confirmed it. She also had the original NP come in and look at it again, and she actually thought the infection itself looked better. So they put her on a new antibiotic (azithromycin), which she will be on for five days. Hopefully this will do it. Although, apparently the rash could hang on for a week or so. Poor Elsa has really been through it this trip! Overall, she seems to be in better spirits, though, and is playing more, which is good.
Elsa is napping now, but we are hoping to get a hike in on the Mist Trail this afternoon, a popular Yosemite trail that takes you up past Vernal and Nevada Falls. We are not sure if we will have enough time at this point to make it all the way up to Vernal, but we will do what we can. Right now, sitting around lazily is actually kind of nice.
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