The month of June flew by in a quick blur. This morning I flipped my National Parks wall calendar to the new month of July and quickly recognized which National Park I was looking at.
Yosemite.
I do not know if that is El Capitan or Half Dome being the primary feature in the Yosemite photo. Or maybe some other Yosemite big rock.
The first time I visited Yosemite I was not much impressed. It was an early October visit. The waterfalls were dried up, the foliage was brown. Yosemite did not seem to rise to the scenic level of other National Parks I had visited.
And then in the early 1990s I returned to Yosemite. A late Spring visit.
We arrived after dark. Saw lights flickering on the side of El Capitan. Rock climbers secured to the side of the cliff. We checked in at Camp Curry, got our key to the tent cabin we'd reserved for a three night stay.
At check-in you are given wool blankets. The beds in the tent cabin were cots. We were warned to beware of visiting bears. The tent cabin campground was noisy, with a weird constant roaring sound.
The next morning, at dawn's early light, I opened the tent cabin door and quickly realized what the source of the weird constant roaring sound was.
A waterfall falling a short distance from Camp Curry.
That was to be the first of many waterfalls seen during the course of that three day stay in Yosemite.
And, by the end of that three day stay in Yosemite, that National Park had become one of my favorites.
I returned to Yosemite a couple years later, in October of 1994, the tail end of a long roadtrip that started with four days of houseboating on Lake Powell, then Monument Valley, the North Rim of Grand Canyon, Zion National Park and Death Valley, plus other locations I am not remembering right now, like Mexican Hat's San Juan Inn, which I am now remembering.
I do not sneak a peak to see which National Park my wall calendar is taking me to next. My favorites are Bryce Canyon, Zion and Arches National Parks. All in Utah.
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