S. and E. said we could rent bikes and ride around Yosemite (I was in YOSEMITE!!! ZOMG!!!), or we could go on a hike. Ordinarily I’m all for bikes, but today I wanted the slowness of the walk so I could stare, because this place is so marvelous I just wanted to look up, wide eyes that I feared would never open wide enough to get it all in. I mean, these are the biggest granite monolith rock formations in the world–I’m not going to speed by them on a bicycle. Instead we joined many of the other 20,000 visitors at the park today on the Mist Trail straight up the hill toward Vernal Falls. As we crossed the first bridge the scene took my breath away, and then S. urged me a bit more to the right, saying, “It’s over here.” And then this view, which I couldn’t actually capture with my cell phone camera, that made my skin tremble and my eyes get weepy. Oh, John Muir, you were right. We walked almost to the top, every direction too much to handle, and then we tripped back down before getting back in the car for a long and winding drive to the coast. We got a 45 degree temperature change today, and tomorrow, the ocean. Vacation, you are ridiculous, and I approve. Now somebody lend me a bike.