Aug 14th: Leaving Yosemite (a retrospective on the valley)

258 miles driven, 63 photographs taken, 1 Americano Grandes drunk, 0 Starbucks City Mugs acquired (First Starbucks encountered in Los Bandos), injuries continue …

Accomodation: Comfort Inn, Monterey (OK)

Picture: The bulk of today’s pictures were taken from Glacier Point and they are up on Flickr. However I choose this view taken as we leaving the valley to represent this final day of our all too brief sojourn in Yosemite.

John Muir was a vigorous campaigner for the preservation of the Yosemite and his words speak to it’s special narure far better than I can:

But no temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite. Every rock in its walls seems to glow with life. Some lean back in majestic repose; others, absolutely sheer or nearly so for thousands of feet, advance beyond their companions in thoughtful attitudes, giving welcome to storms and calms alike, seemingly aware, yet heedless, of everything going on about them. Awful in stern, immovable majesty, how softly these rocks are adorned, and how fine and reassuring the company they keep; their feet among beautiful groves and meadows, their brows in the sky, a thousand flowers leaning confidently against their feet, bathed in floods of water, floods of light, while the snow and waterfalls, the winds and avalanches and clouds shine and sing and wreathe about them as the years go by, and myriads of small winged creatures – birds, bees, butterflies – give glad animation and help to make all the air into music. Down through the middle of the Valley flows the crystal Merced, River of Mercy, peacefully quiet, reflecting lilies and trees and the onlooking rocks …

This is a place to which I must return, for longer, in the Spring, with a functioning knee and a couple of stone lighter ….