Yosemite - Day 2: July 24, 2010

Woke up and had buffet breakfast provided by Jones. Cornbread had a meeting, so the girls and I went back to the room and they watched some tv while I read my book. I brought them to the children's activities that were provided by Jones while I was supposed to join Cornbread in the meeting, but I ditched the meeting and went back to the room to read. (note: it is Tuesday August 3rd and I STILL feel guilty about ditching).

The girls were done at 12:15. After picking them up we went into Oakhurst to do some grocery shopping. Stopped at a fruitstand for some cherries and nectarines and went to the grocery store to get some food for breakfasts and lunches. (note: cherries at this fruit stand cannot be compared to cherries from the farmer's markets here. I didn't even finish them, they were so unimpressive.)

The concierge had spoken at Cornbread's meeting and told them about a hiking trail that was very close to the lodge so we decided to do that rather than try to get into Yosemite yet that afternoon. It was awesome. The hike was about 1/2 - 3/4 of a mile and ended at a waterfall with a bunch of pools. Cornbread and the girls had worn their swimsuits so they did a lot of wading and falling and getting wet. I was the photographer :) We explored as many pools as we felt comfortable doing (the higher we got the stronger the current and the deeper the pools were), and went back to the lodge to get in the real pool for a little bit.

Initially we had planned to go on a ChuckWagon BBQ dinner ride on Wednesday night, but after talking to a few people decided that we'd prefer to do a moonlight dinner ride on the Sugar Pine Railway. Two other Jones families with children close in age to our girls were also there. We had a good time eating dinner (of which the girls hardly ate anything) and riding the train through the forest. The train stopped at a firepit and we all got off and had about an hour of entertainment by The SugarPines - a group of three locals who played guitars and sang sing-along favorites. It was totally corny, but everyone had a good time. We then rode back to the station in complete dark/moonlight.

Got back to the room around 9:30 PST and crashed. Everyone is sleeping very, very well here.As of this day, Nodie has hated almost every moment of the trip. We've had to have several "conversations" with her about her attitude... I certainly expected that kind of thing when she was 12 or 13, but not at 8 1/2. Oh well, she can be miserable. WE will not be. She'll get better - hopefully.