Summer Vacation '09

This is how Danny liked to start each day in the car. I downloaded some They Might Be Giants Friday Night Family Podcasts for him to watch on the iPod. I ended up buying some headphones that fit half way through the trip.
Then he would move on to his Indiana Jones phase. I'm not sure who he thinks Indiana Jones is, but I guess he's heard his brothers say the name or something.
So this was campsite number one, at Great Basin National Park. This is the view from the bathroom to the car of our tent...
...and from the car to the bathroom. I just thought it was about the best campground ever. It was at 10,000 feet elevation, and we felt like we had our own private meadow. The bathroom was near, but hidden by the little hill, water was close, we couldn't see another tent thanks to the woods, and deer came to the meadow all the time. We could also walk to a little stream to explore.
This is in Lehman Caves, the main attraction of the park. The kids earned their Jr. Ranger badges.
Back at camp, Danny fell, so his brothers carried him back for help, which of course made him laugh a lot!
Wheeler peak, second highest peak in Nevada, visible from the campsite. I'd like to take the boys back to hike it someday.
Such a pretty little wild columbine
And what would the perfect campground be without a good carcass...antlers still attached! Bonus. But sadly, at this point our camera gave out. It had been dropped 2 days before vacation, but worked sporadically till now. So lucky for you perhaps, but sad to me, we were without our camera for the remainder of vacation. We missed June Lake, Mono Lake, and the Tioga pass across Yosemite, including Tenaya Lake, one of my favorite places in the world. I finally bought a disposable camera, and we took a few really grainy bad shots...
Yosemite is truly a beautiful place. We saw 2 bears!
There's a waterfall up behind us.
More swearing in a new Jr. Rangers. We love that program!
Davey especially liked El Capitan.
We stopped in this meadow to look for climbers on El Capitan. Finally found one.

On to Palo Alto, Grandma JoAnne, Monterey Bay Aquarium, and Ghiridelli fudge sundaes.
We stopped at our favorite beaches. Saw dead seal, dead cormorant, dead crab, and a seagull with a starfish stuck in it's throat. Oh the pictures we would have had...
On to Gold Country. This is the first monument in california, above the burial site of James Marshall, the man who first discovered gold and started the largest voluntary human migration ever. It also resides at the end of the shortest state highway. Clay was so excited to see it, because he had a book with a picture of the monument in it.
We panned for gold in the American River, just about 100 yds upstream of the original sight of Sutter's Mill.

It was fun to see a replica of Sutter's Mill, and hear the ranger retell the details for us.
We hired a guide of our own who taught us how to pan and use a sluice box.

After 2 hrs hard work, we combined all the gold from the whole family, and it just about covers the bottom of this little vial. But it was a lot of fun! And hopefully now Clay understands why Dad doesn't quit his job and we just all pan for gold all day.
After gold country, we stayed at Fallen Leaf Lake, at South Lake Tahoe, and enjoyed seeing Tahoe and catching crayfish under the rocks and burying each other in the sand. Then we headed home. We listened to 5 books on CD, and read one in the 2300 miles we travelled. Check my goodreads.com account for more info on that! It was a great vacation, and we were all ready to come home again.