Yosemite Day 1

This was our first time out on the Salt Flats!

A few months ago Dad saw a special hotel deal on the Internet. The problem was, the deal had to be closed by 6 pm, and he was at work. So he rushed home and talked quickly to Mom. They booked the hotels in time, and things were cheap but not exactly optimal. The hotels were kind of dumpy, and one is on the wrong side of the park, but we planned a six day trip. There were two days at Lake Tahoe, two days in Yosemite, and two days at Big Trees. Dad was especially excited to take Mom to Big Trees, because it was her favorite vacation spot when she was growing up in northern California.

The kids got home from Grandma’s on Saturday, and Mom got done with Girls’ Camp on Friday, but the van was packed and ready to go early Sunday morning. We ate some waffles and left the house by 7 am. The drive across Nevada is a long one, and we only really planned three stops. The first stop was just east of Wendover at the Salt Flats rest stop. We got out of the car for a few minutes and walked across the salt. The boys even tasted it a little bit, and declared it horrible. We only spent about fifteen minutes, including going to the bathroom, but at least we got out of the car.

We all tasted the salt. It was salty (and gross)!

The salt flats go on for ever and ever. 

There was a little bit of water, but mostly just salt. 

That's Dax out there. He said he wanted to walk to the mountains. 

We felt like we were rolling across Nevada pretty fast, but we didn’t see much. Mark spotted a pronghorn and Dad showed everyone a coyote, but we didn’t get any pictures at 85 miles an hour on the freeway. By one o’clock, which was actually noon Pacific Time, we stopped for lunch in Winnemucca. We drove to a little park on the river and Mom made sandwiches. As we sat in the shade munching chips, we saw a lot of birds flying up and down the dirty river. There were ibises, egrets, including great egrets, pelicans, and ducks. We stopped for less than an hour that time, and hurried back down the road.

We lucked out with a shady bench right by the river. 

We loved sitting underneath all the birds flying by, especially this Great Egret.

The boys had to do a little rock throwing, of course.

Our third and final stop took us a little off the path to south Tahoe. We rode through Reno and visited the temple. It was Sunday, so the gates were locked, but we got a picture for our temple books. Dad remembered it was the 34^th temple he’d visited. It is a small temple that looks a lot like Monticello, UT.

The Reno Temple was small, but we love to see the beautiful grounds of all the temples.

It was nearly 5 o’clock when we pulled up at the first Lake Tahoe overlook. The boys hadn’t really been out of the car all day, and they were excited to climb some rocks and run up and down the trail. The lake was beautiful, and though there has been a massive fire near Yosemite (just our luck!) the air was clear. We continued on down and checked in to the hotel, which is a real dump. There are about eight inches between the bed and the bathroom door, and no floor space is big enough to set up a cardboard table. It’s not very clean, and there is no bathroom fan, either. Luckily, we don’t spend much time in hotels other than sleeping.

The boys had never seen Lake Tahoe, and they were super excited.

Mom hasn't been here in ages!

We did a little exploring on these rocks. It was nice to be out of the car.

We asked some nice foreigners to take our picture. Lake Tahoe is very blue!

We were hungry, so we stopped by the local Hard Rock Café. This is one of Dad’s favorite places, but this Hard Rock wasn’t so great. The food was fine, but the prices were much higher than we remembered. Worse, the restaurant was in a casino, so we had to be careful where we walked. A lot of the rock and roll memorabilia on the walls was 90s thrash metal rather than good old rock and roll, but the boys saw enough stuff they recognized to enjoy it.

After dinner, we donned our swimsuits and headed to the beach. It’s only a few minutes walking down to the beach from our crummy hotel, so we left the van and hoofed it down there. The beach was really fun, and it was plenty warm, even though it was late in the day. We stayed for almost two hours. The boys swam and made sand castles and played in the water. They probably would have stayed all night, but we packed them up a little after 8 pm and took them home for showers. It was a long day, but at least we made the drive. The boys were amazing in the car, and we have another whole day in Tahoe!

The water was freezing, but Seth didn't care one bit. 

Dax preferred to stay on the edge and dig moats.

Mark went way out. He doesn't mind the cold water. 

We had so much fun at Lake Tahoe. 

Everyone was smiling.  

Dad even went in the water for a bit, but not Mom. She would have frozen to death.

The boys created this huge moat around an island they made of sand.

We stayed until sunset playing in the water. It was a great day!

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