Here is a place I highly recommend you visit sometime. Yosemite National Park.   It used to be on my bucket list, but I was recently able to check it off.  Actually it was the only thing on my bucket list.  Come to think of it, I guess I really don’t have a bucket list, since this was the only thing on it.  Some people have a big long list of shit they want to do before they die.  I have never been so inclined.  I like to keep things simple.  Now that I’m retired, if I spot something I think would be interesting, I just pack up and head out the door and go take a look-see.  I usually have to bring my wife along, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  In fact, that works out pretty well.  That means she has to give her stamp of approval to whatever it is I am focusing on.  She’s not about to have me drag her off to someplace she’ll be absolutely disinterested in, or someplace scary, or more likely totally gross.  She doesn’t go in for that kind of stuff.  So if my idea goes into her rejection bin, I will usually reconsider and just stay home.  That way I save a lot of money.

But one thing my wife and I are in total agreement on is our favorite vacation spot.  If there is one place we feel we must get to on a regular basis, it is Teton National Park.  A lot of that has to

Teton NP

do with the fact that I am from Wyoming and as a kid my family often traveled there.  My own children, and a few of our friends and relatives, keep wondering if my wife and I aren’t a little off the beam with our reluctance to expand our travel horizons.  To put it bluntly, all those people can just stick their ideas up their ass.  I don’t have any interest in going to Europe.  It’s a risk aversion technique for me.  Let’s face it.  The chances of getting blown up in an airplane increase exponentially the further away from Omaha you get.  And all the currency hassles.  What the heck is that euro crap anyway.  Bunch of uppity Euro trash trying to screw us.   And Mexico?  Are you kidding me.  If the cartel is holding me for ransom, I’m a dead man.  No way my family has the kind of money they’ll be demanding, not to mention the fact that I can’t think of anyone in my family that would pay for my release anyway.  I have a number of in-laws who would likely step up and  pool their money, but they would agree to hand it over only after my kidnappers promised to keep me in Mexico forever.  Plus, I don’t speak any Spanish.  I’d be totally fucked- probably by any and all remaining male members of the Escobar ring.  So I’ll just stick with the Tetons, thank you anyway.

But Yosemite!  Wow!  That vacation had its fetal beginnings long ago when I mentioned to my family how I thought the triumvirate of mountainous national parks was Teton, Glacier, and Yosemite.

Glacier NP

My daughter apparently stored that tidbit of information away, and knowing of the three parks the only one I had not seen was Yosemite, a Christmas present from her last year was a gift certificate for a cabin rental there.  So off we went in early May for my personal scoring of mother nature.  And I have to admit after seeing Yosemite, it holds its own with the Tetons in overwhelming, eye-catching beauty.  In fact, I have to give the edge to Yosemite in dimensional and scenic contrast.  I don’t think there is anyplace on earth with such a heavy concentration of easily visible, spectacular waterfalls, and the huge rock outcroppings that rise out of the valley take your breath away.   It’s hard to believe but there are all sorts of crazy people climbing up those sheer vertical cliffs.  Take a look at El Capitan (photo below).  It can take 5 days to climb that thing, but that doesn’t seem to bother some people.  To add to the excitement, you get to shit in a bag on the way up.  You’re supposed to shit in a bag anyway.  I think it’s official protocol, and really, its the decent thing to do I would think. They used to use PVC tubes to collect the stuff in.  However, I had a credible source explain to me that quite often climbers ignore the collection requirement and just go bombs away and look out below.   Unless you’re top man that doesn’t seem at all like fun.  Imposing conformations of nature and the accompanying grandeur seem to bring out the most bazaar in the human race.  For instance, when we were there two looneys wearing wing suits jumped right off the top of one of those rocky peaks and body slammed themselves to death right into a wall of unforgiving granite.  Orville and Wilbur proved man can fly, but not without considerably more structural help than products supplied by Brooks Brothers.  (See examples below).

Might Not Work Well

Works Well

Having finally seen all three parks, I have to admit how I rank them is a bit clouded with nostalgic bias.  Because of all my memories of the place, Teton NP is still, and will always be, my first choice for a vacation destination.  Yosemite is a very close second.  In fact, if I lived within a 100 mile radius of either of these national parks, I would be strolling around inside taking pictures every week.  I’m a senior citizen living in the United States of America.  I am admitted to any national park for free as long as I have my senior citizen pass.  Man I love this country.  Getting old here isn’t too bad of a deal.

Besides the pristine beauty of Yosemite, one other thing struck me about California.  The overall impression I got about the rest of the state was the color brown.  That is the color of the terrain everywhere you look, except for the green almond trees.  And that’s possibly the main reason the rest of the state is brown.  From what I hear, it takes a gallon of water to produce a single almond.  We drove by three reservoirs on our California trip, and it was obvious from the water level in all of them that those almond tress are living a precarious existence, not to mention much of the human population out there.  So my advise to you if you want to see Yosemite is to get moving on your plans soon before it too turns brown.  It’s a beautiful place.  Enjoy it while you can.  One caveat though.  Don’t wander too close to the base of El Capitan.  Or at least wear a broad-brimmed hat if you do.