Day 13: Yosemite
Hello everyone! We are the Sneezys (aka Sleazys). The
members are Skylar Paschke, Cade McConnell, Clara Cobb, Sealey Scott, Carson
Greene, Andrew Fleming aka Greg, Morgan Hurt, Sophia Carter, Taylor Gagnon,
Luke Harmon, Dakota Jacobsen, Makayla Johnson and Isabella Tarlton. We will be
writing the blog for the next four days!
Today we woke up around 6:45 at the First Presbyterian
Church in San Francisco. Waking up at 6:45 is actually sleeping in for us, so that was awesome. It
was exciting to see that there was not dew on our sleeping bags, if there were we
would have had a problem. It was also refreshing to have nice, clean clothes
provided by our dear friend in San Fran who did all of our laundry and folded it. Now we can smell slightly better.
We headed out of San Fran and made our way to our first stop of the day: Wal-Mart. In Wal-mart, it seemed like everyone got the discount
doughnuts that expired today. The McDonald’s was packed and the TWB
participants said the iced coffee was “janky." While we were waiting for the
bus, Kenny was eating his chicken wings. A few moments later, he was throwing
the bones at us.
We loaded the bus and vans again and headed off. As we were eating our gourmet breakfast of bagels with the options of peanut butter, cream cheese or nutella on them we left the
beautiful city of San Fran. Everyone on the buses and vans really enjoyed our bagels.
The drive was a long journey to get to Yosemite. Many curvy
roads and Henry even suggested that people should take some dramamine. The
people on the bus got really creative and used their time wisely by making
bracelets and drawing interesting designs on each other; for example, a flying
narwhal. Others also played many games like What Are the Odds?, Would You
Rather…, and many more. We almost made it to the Yosemite rest area until we
were woken up by a change in the temperature...it was really hot. People started
taking off their shirts and using the trays to fan themselves.
We made it to the rest area, where we were welcomed by the
smell of smoke. Due to the fires in Yosemite, we had to take a bit of a different route to get to our campsite and the air was hazy on the drive up. But it wasn’t that bad since we had a wonderful lunch of subs
and cookies at the rest area. The bathrooms were also sketchy since the actual
bathrooms were out of service and we had to use port-a-potties. When Skylar was
eating her sandwich, a bee landed on it and she threw it, wasting her sandwich.
We realized that the bus broke down and the A/C did not want
to work. V reminded us that several years ago on TWB, there was no A/C, so it
could have been 10 times worse. It made us appreciate A/C and other amenities. We
had to drive about 47 miles until we made it to our campsite, where we were
going to sleep with the bears!!
Upon arriving to Tuolumne we were excited to find a general store with pay phones
and ice cream. The campsite had the most amazing and cold water out of all the
campsites we’ve been to so far. Several people got to call for a low fee of $1
per every 2 minutes. We really love it when our parents pay for our phone bill. TWB
got ice cream and our souvenirs before eating a great dinner.
Dinner was tomato soup, grilled cheese, lemonade, grapes, and frosted
cookies. The frosted cookies are loved or hated, but everyone in our group
loved them. At this point most everyone will eat any dessert that is put in front of them. The dishwashers had to be careful washing everything because they
did not want to attract bears. Before bed, we had to put our things in bear
bins so we wouldn’t attract any bears. Some yearlings have been spotted recently around the campsite we were in, so we were very cautious. After dinner, about 20 people went to a campfire event sponsored by the park rangers. It was interesting to say the least, and some parts were even poetic. Halfway through the performance Henry, Matt, and
William came back with the bus, which they had taken down the hill to a nearby town to repair. They never found a mechanic, but Henry was the hero
of the day and fixed it for us. Henry was tired and immediately passed out in his "condo" under the bus.
It took a while for everyone to settle down and some people
even thought that some snoring was a bear coming into the campsite. Tomorrow,
we are looking forward to going to our next destination, Salt Lake City!
