November Visitors Part I: Yo-Se-Mite!

The Wildlife Animals rock Yosemite on their first West Coast tour.

It started with picking up Bryan with a "Y" at OAK on Thursday the 5th. We'd made a plan forhim to swing through on his way to visit a hiking buddy in New Zealand. For those who don't know the Notorious BKG, Bryan is my other brother from another mother (Cricket being the original), who I met through my old job at Marshy Point Nature Center. Bryan was the ranger who lived in the caretaker's house at the State Park that bordered my park. We were like THIS (crossed fingers go here), and we still are, even though (he doesn't know this yet) I stole his favorite Maryland hat and his Polartech WindPro jacket (it's very comfy in the chilly pacific coast air, and it wouldn't have fit in the three boxes we sent back to Maryland for him when he left for his New Zealand adventure... check his blog out here: http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Brian-with-a-Y/).

James sports his new jacket and hat.
Chicks dig him now.

It's all good though, because we're in a rock band together, so we share everything (well, not really "everything")... When I got my drum set, we moved it into Bryan's basement since his house was in the middle of the woods (ours shared walls with two neighbors). We started our band, aptly dubbed "The Wildlife Animals," with him on keys and Jess singing, and the rest is history.

On to the main story...

Friday morning we packed the gear and headed for Yosemite. It was the first visit for all three of us. The valley is deep in the grooves of massive rock faces... it started getting dark at 4:30! As the sun set, we set up our tents by the light of our neighbor's RV. Ranger Bryan went to say hello, and in his friendliest Ranger Bryan tones managed to simultaneously get them to do their dish washing in a place where their water wouldn't run into our site AND befriend them (the following night they brought us apple pie, which was very much appreciated after a loooooong day of hiking). They also had two really friendly doggies.

That night we got lost looking for a ranger program and ended up eventually finding it at Yosemite Village. It was a video documenting the life and photography of Ansel Adams. We enjoyed the heated room for a while before heading back to hit the sack in our 35 degree tents.

I fixed breakfast when I woke up. I used the few tiny hot coals in the fire pit to catch some pine straw as kindling and warmed my hands. Talk about roughing it, we had an empty wine bottle from the night before, which I filled with water and placed near the fire for hot cocoa. We'd brought plenty of food, but no cups, so I used a couple of tin cans instead. Jess and Bryan were excited about the warm cocoa and fire, and we enjoyed some raspberry pancakes I'd whipped up. Yup, compared to actual backpacking, this was club med.

When we were ready to go, we hit the trail to Nevada Falls. Bryan was all set with his new pair of trekking poles, but to our dismay, the trail was paved! The trip up took a few hours. In four miles we climbed about 2000 feet. The views were spectacular...

Jess took a well-deserved nap... she would need her strength for the trip back...

And it was a treacherous way back. Some folks on their way up warned us about the 600 "steps" they'd just climbed to get to the lower Vernal Falls overlook (they were barely big enough for my giant feet and covered in leaves and slippery grit). By the time we got to the steps it was getting on 3:30, and we were worried the sun would be going down soon. As we were heading down, there were families with small children heading up... they would no doubt be hiking in the dark if they kept going, yet the patriarchs seemed to be pushing on even against our stern warnings. They were lucky we had Jess up there to protect everyone from dangerous rock falls...

Lead singer Jessica Frank saves small birds and children from a rock slide
while drummer/song-writer James Frank and DJ/keys/lead personality Ranger Gomes maintain crowd control.

As it was, we reached our campsite just as the sun set. We had a delicious meal of canned chili mixed with refried beans and cheese on tortillas, and then headed to another ranger presentation. We were all in our PJs, which smelled strongly of campfire (as noted by a lady sitting in the row in front of us). When the ranger asked everyone where they were staying, we were the only ones there who were camping, and so we became celebrities (we just can't go anywhere these days to escape the pressure of being famous musicians).

The band prepares for their big hike

The next morning we did brunch at the Awahnee Hotel for Bryan's birthday. It's the gem of the valley's hotels, historic and ritzy. We each made sure to get our 50 bucks worth over the course of two-and-a-half hours. Three kinds of smoked salmon and trout, crepes, roasts, omelets, desserts, and of course, sushi. We stuck a candle in a piece of sushi for Bryan.

Ranger Gomes celebrates his second 19th birthday with sushi served from the nude body of a private model,
then prepares to scale El Capitan. As there were no naked sushi models on the rock face, he opted to wait until they arrived.

We hit the road after breakfast, stopping at El Capitan so Bryan could get a photo with the well-known rock face that takes a good climber upwards of a full 24 hours to scurry up. We're not good climbers, so this was a "look don't touch" operation.

The cats had eaten all of their food by the time we returned Sunday night. We gave them a fresh bowl and headed for bed.

We had a big week ahead of us. Bryan had some packing and prepping to do for New Zealand. Justin, who was already in San Jose for a physicist conference, was due in to Chateau Frank on Wednesday. Bridget was joining him Thursday, and we all were excited for a second weekend of good times...