The Quest

We went to Yosemite this weekend.
We did some climbing on Thursday there but they were doing controled fires, so we went to Tuolomne.
On Friday we hike up to the base of Cathedral Peak and powered up, passing all the early- getter- uppers. Papa got some interesting comments as his kids passed all the buff guys. At the top:On the way up to Cathedral, Papa had a crazy idea of hiking to Mammmoth. I thought he was joking at first but when he started to show signs of really craving Looney Bean I started taking him seriously. The Plan: Hike 27 or so miles on the John Muir trail starting 0600 Saturday morn, arive before dark, camp at a Mammoth Camping ground and drink some Breve Lattes and Americanos on the morning after. I decided I really craved my latte so I agreed. Big mistake? da...da... daaaaaa
We found our secret campsite outside Tuolomne that night to sleep, but before bed we had to make rock sculptres which is one of the numerous things you have to do when your in the wilderness:)
And there were chickens... or they looked like chickens and sounded like chickens, but weren't chickens. I forgot what they were called. it started with a G.
We got to bed by 2030 and I stayed up some of the night looking at stars. They were really pretty. I got enough sleep to wake up at 0530 and head to the trail.

This is the trailhead. Our first benchmark: Donahue Pass 11.9 miles. Fun...

and we hiked

and hiked

My trail!

ok two trails

This is Lyell Canyon. We passed through a really pretty meadow.

Yes we have to go through that

The black mountains in the background are Banner and Ritter in case your wondering:)

Oh Mammoth Mountain soooooo far away

At the top of Donahue Pass. Mile #12

Pretty meadow on Island Pass(second and final pass we went through before mammoth hills)

Notice how my sambas are not black anymore. I think I still have dust in my throat from that part of the hike:0 cough

End of the trail 27 miles and 10 hrs, 45 min later: We're tired and pissed and our feet hurt and our butt hurts and our hamstrings are wrecked. Stefan's badass cause he wore sandals the whole way and they were too small for him. Good work!
The shuttle drove up to the station just as we walked up. Great timing! Halleluyah! I almost fell asleep on the shuttle. Oh... it was nice to sit down. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Sunday morning 0630, Yummay Latte:) Mission Accomplished... almost.

Hitch hike...
It only took us one ride to get back to the car and we were on the road home by 1030. Now mission accomplished:)

We stopped by the good ol' Mulkeys for a visit and ended up staying for 4 hours. we climbed trees and made ziplines with the boys. Papa watched from afar.

The end

Happy Birthday Pa

still doin what you love

Congrats!
Love you

Chapter 2

Kansas was great... but I wouldn't say it was a highlight. Only the fact that I've never seen anywhere else so uninhabited made it sort of exciting. Believe it or not I have some pictures from Kansas... every once in a while, maybe every 50 or so miles we'd see a town. The biggest thing in the town was the church so it always stood out:




This is me focusing on my computer game. Papa brought his laptop so we could play games. :)
Once when we were just driving along and it was getting dark we thought it suddenly started raining because we heard a patter patter sound on the windsheild. But then we noticed the other windows weren't wet so we were a little confused. When the windshield got a little light on it, it looked like this. Bug guts :P

We got to Kansas City, Missouri at about 1 AM Central time(11 Pacific) and found our campsite. I was a little stressed because I would only get 5 hours of sleep before I had to wake up to go to camp. I woke at six and had steak for breakfast.
We made it to the camp at the appointed time and right when I walked into the office of Dragon Gymnastics, there he was, Al Fong, one of the top coaches in the U.S! It was an honor to shake his hand, and I laughed when he said I looked like a gymnast, "You're qualified." Yayy!

And so the week started. Wow! Honestly it was an experience of a lifetime.

Road Trip: chapter 1

January 07

"How bout this one? Dragon Gymnastics?"
"sounds good..."
"We'll road trip"

June 9 07:

3:30 was too early. It seemed like every thing just played itself out, effortless almost. The bags jumped into the car before us and we were on the road by 3:35. It's here, was the first thought of the day.

The plan: Vroom through Las Vegas, Utah on the first day, camp in Colorado, and head on through Kansas to Blue Springs, Missouri.

How it played out: Well be patient it'll take time...

I slept in the car and awoke about an hour before we hit Las Vegas. When we did, it didn't strike me as the Las Vegas I imagined, still nevertheless I guess it was worth seeing all the billboards(seriously I go there just to see them) and random casinos and stuff like that regardless of the heat. It was only when we stepped out of the car that I really started to appreciate the air conditioning:)

Once we got to Utah temeperature was a little better, but let's not talk about the weather. Here are some pictures from Utah.

potty stop

Everything in utah was tilted. It was weird.

We made it to Colorado by 9ish I think. Papa got ahold of his old friend Gary Fluitt and he said we could stay at his house. He has a big house and a fun family... so we stayed there for the night we were there:)

Oh yah and starbucks.... can't forget Starbucks. Our trip was kinda mapped out by coffee stops.

We left Golden(where the kind Fluitts lived) by about noon and headed toward the desolate... I mean desolate Kansas:)