17 October, 2016 (Emily Smith)

Happy Monday, folks! It was certainly one of the better Mondays that I’ve had, anyway. We got right back into the swing of things by waking up bright and early to a tasty breakfast of oatmeal, peaches, bacon, sausage and banana & walnut pancakes – which I was overly enthusiastic about, seeing as bananas are my favorite fruit but Mariah monitored my intake of due to my unfortunate banana allergy. Anyway, during breakfast prep and after our meal, we all banded together to make Summit Adventure as spotless as we found it since they so graciously gave us a place to crash for the past two nights. I think we all really enjoyed our time there, but boy, were we excited to make it into Yosemite today! I expected it to be beautiful, but I really don’t think I could have prepared for all that it was. We attempted to make the most of our short time that we have here – we entered the park and stopped first to snag some photos and gawk at the scene that laid out the iconic El Cap and Half Dome before us, then making our way to the visitor’s center where we had the opportunity to explore that, a general store, the Ansel Adams Gallery and a museum depicting the first people of Yosemite. After spending a few hours doing that, we caught a ranger-led walk that taught us about Yosemite’s first people too. Even after packing our day pretty full and seeing and doing as much as we did I still find myself wishing we had more time. I feel like there is still so much to see and do here. We aimed to make it to a night exploration of sorts and due to some complications that didn’t quite work out for us. I did overhear quite a bit of conversation on our shuttle ride back to camp though. Cody and Tommy seemed to make two friends that they spoke of our travels to. These two ladies seemed to be on their own life adventures from the conversation that I heard. Cody that that he loves waking up in a new place every day and learning all the new that there is new be learned that day. Their new friend said some things about that being what its all about. Every day brings a whole new set of chips to the table for us to pick up and figure out how to use. I love it. That idea might be hard to deal with sometimes, but there’s a whole lot to love, and without love in the dream it’ll never come true.