Some of my favorite memories from childhood consist of our annual family outings to Yosemite Valley. I truly believe that they were pivotal in shaping my love of the outdoors as an adult and I am so grateful to my parents for bringing me and my sister on these wonderful trips. I recently realized that I often find myself taking our early experiences for granted and it always surprises me to hear from friends or people I meet that they had never gone camping before.
So in the spirit of sharing our love of national parks and Yosemite in particular, we took some of our non-camping friends to Yosemite Valley for the weekend. We decided that staying in the housekeeping camp would be a good way to ease them in, not to mention it was April and still quite chilly. It was a lot of fun to go back to familiar spots like Yosemite Falls, Mirror Lake, and Yosemite and Curry (I refuse to call it Half Dome) Villages and to share some of our favorite camping activities with them.
Being in the valley brought back memories of roasting marshmallows at the campfire, eating ice cream at Happy Isles after a strenuous hike, watching my dad swimming in the river searching for lost eyeglasses, racing our rafts down that same river, riding bicycles from village to village, and stargazing with amateur astronomers.
