A week with family

We made our way south with lots of excitement to see Aunt Audrey, Uncle Randy, Kurtis and Konrad.    Our first month on the road was planned out so that we would make it to California to spend the week together.  We did it!

We spent the first 4 days exploring the Yosemite area.  On our first day in the park we took a hike on the 4 mile trail.  The view from Glacier Point was amazing!  It looked like a painted Hollywood backdrop.  We also made sure to enter 4 of the guys in the Half Dome hike lottery.  Yosemite allows 400 people to hike this trail daily.  They award 350 permits via a lottery in the Spring and then 50 additional permits are available via lottery 2 days prior to the day you want to hike.  So the odds of getting a permit are 1 in 50.  But, when they applied, Yosemite was making 125 permits available (not a popular time with hikers?).  I knew when they said that, the guys were going to hike in 2 days!  We found out the next morning that they were given a permit so we spent the day preparing.  By God's grace, we were at the motorhome when Randy and Audrey's rental car was struck by a motorhome.  Jerry was outside and flagged down the driver.  He was from Germany and had only been driving the motorhome 3 days.  We were so thankful he did not hit our motorhome or Jeep.  It looks like it will work out fine.  We relaxed that afternoon at the local Bass Lake!

The day of the big hike came and went and everyone did great.  Audrey, the boys and I started on the same trail as the guys but they quickly took off and set a great pace.  Most hikers complete the Half Dome hike in 12 hours, but they finished in 8 hours.  Jerry said the cables made him feel like hanging from a 1000ft building with only a cable to hang on to.  Meanwhile, we hiked to Nevada Falls via the Mist Trail.  It was a great day and Aunt Audrey had plenty of energy, more than me!  We thank the Lord she is doing so well.  It was only a few months ago when I was visiting VA that she barely had enough energy for a walk around her neighborhood.

The last 3 days of our time together was spent in Sequoia National Park.  We really enjoyed seeing the massive trees and taking a few "walks" in the park (Asa did not care to do any more hiking!).  Our RV site was beside a river and had an awesome swimming hole that we all loved to cool down in.
It was a wonderful week and the 8 of us survived sharing very close quarters in the motorhome.  Our boys enjoyed having cousins to play with.