My Winter Vacation Part IV: New Years Weekend

I would first like to say that I hate New Years Eve. It's a sucky holiday if you ask me. First, once you are an adult, yuou have all of these expectations that cannot be met. Then the evening ends up sucking. When I lived in DC, It was always the coldest night of the year, and there we were "in barely nothing on" formalwear and high heel shoes, slipping and sliding on the ice. It was always a joke with my friends, who would ruin New Years that year; would it be the friend who tripped on acid at some strangers party and end up puking on the hosts' expensive down comforter, or would it be that friend, who after too much to drink would lock himself in the bathroom and cry over a failed relationship, or would it be you or some one else, quietly vomiting in a taxi cab, into a pricey purse, that was bought especially for the occasion. Needless to say, I hate New Years. This year, I was just not going to celebrate it. That was before Meg invited me along to Yosemite to celebrate with her family.

Meg, Charlie and I set off fo Yosemite on Friday. I worked for half the day and then met Meg around 1:00 or so to get on the road. Meg had done her best to make Charlie as tired as possible so he would sleep in the car. You see Charlie has just learned how to walk and he loves it so much he gets really irritated if he is confined for too long. You have to understand something about when Me, Charlie and Meg Travel. There are lots of stops. LOTS of stops. Our first stop was in Livermore for In -n- out Burger and a brief but ill fated Wal-mart run (I hate Wal-Mart even more now) , Then there was the Truck Stop in the middle of nowhere, where we were for a hour or so so Charlie could walk around, Then there was the stop at this hotel to make sure we were not lost. The other thing about the three of us when we travel is that we tend to get lost. This is due to the fact that we don't always pay attention. Any way, I think it took us 8 or 9 hours to make the 4 ½ our journey to the Yosemite Lodge.

The lodge itself was very nice, but the first thing they do when you check in is make you terrified that your car will be attacked by bears. I thought that bears hibernate in the winter. Clearly, all those Yogi Bear Cartoons were wrong. They told us that if didn't get every single crumb of food out of the car then the bears would attack it and rip up the seats and pee on them. It was pouring down rain and we both decided that we would risk it by not picking up every crumb of food that was in that car. I was pretty sure that like us, the bears had no intention in going out in the sheets of water that were falling from the sky at that point.






The next day, despite the driving rain we decided to walk up to the falls on this trail that we walked until the trail flooded out. I was pretty impressed, I was with Megs family and this was totally something that my family would have done, hiking in a rain storm with a toddler. The falls were beautiful. Very wild with the rain pouring down, but very beautiful. The trip it self was reminiscent of hikes that our family would take, which would be risky to say the least, but we did them anyway. Like the time where my mom broke her leg on the side of a Mountian at Table Rock, It was definatly one of those great moments in a Family history, where they will always look back on. I was glad to share that with the Rossers.
a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7029/1951/1600/IMG_0029.0.jpg">
Awahanee Hotel. It was very posh and had wine. I read some story in Vanity Fair about how Judith Miller is a mouthpiece for the Bush Administration and took care of Charlie, while the Rossers played Bridge.



At the lodge they supplied a dinner and dancing for New Years. Meg , Charlie and I did the dinner, the dancing we decided to go back to the hotel, but rang in the new year under the most beautiful sky I have ever seen. I saw so many constellations. It was beautiful.

The next day we had brunch. Then went on a short walk, and then embarked on an 8hr trip home (with stops and getting lost included.)

I had a good time

It exhausting and fun and much better than: watching some one puke on a down comforter.

Charlie learned 2 words

"Girl" and "Poo Poo"