Well this is part two of my trip out to Bishop/Eastern Sierras.  It was still hot (95+) the entire time, and by the end of the trip I think Adam was getting a little tired of it.  He had a great time though hanging out with both sets of grandparents.

We made the best use of our time while we were out there, and visited lots of different places.  One place on our list was Erik Schat’s Bakkery in Bishop.  They’ve got some of the most delicious bread/pastries/candies I’ve had in a long time!

We also took a trip up to Mammoth Mtn area, where we spent some time hiking around & playing in the water.

This kid is crazy.  The water is freezing cold, it was windy & a little chilly, and he was as happy as a clam.  That is until he fell into the water and got soaked!

Remember, you are being watched!

On the last day of our trip we headed up the Ancient Bristlecone Forest about 20mi outside of Big Pine.  On the way we passed the remnants of this train station.

The forest is at around 10,000ft elevation, and some of these trees are 3000+ years old.

The view from the meadow looking west towards the Sierras.  Though they’re a couple hundred miles away, LA would be off to the left, and Reno would be to the right.

Mount Whitney is the tall peak on the right.  My inlaws had climbed to the top of the peak at around 10am, and headed back down.  They ended up making to the parking lot at Whitney Portal at about 5:3opm, approx 21 days since they started their hike in the Yosemite Valley.

Just like my parents, my in laws were not told their grandson was coming.  This was their reaction to the first time they saw him.

We decided that our own bed sounded better than the campsite, so we left Whitney Portal Sunday afternoon and got home around 2am the next morning.

So from a previous post I mentioned my inlaws were hiking the John Muir Trail in Yosemite.  This is the week I’m heading up to pick them up from Lone Pine, California.  In addition to picking them up, I have ancestors who lived in Bishop California and in the surrounding towns.  So I packed up my 2 1/2 year old, and met up with my parents in Bishop who drove out from UT.  My parents had no clue that I was bringing their grandson, so they had some great looks of surprise when they saw him.

We spent two days checking out the courthouse for old records that involve my ancestors and enjoying the area.  We also took advantage of some spare time, and drove out to Manazar, which is known as an internment camp for Japanese Americans during WWII.  We also took a visit to the Laws Railroad Museum, which is a couple miles outside of Bishop on Hwy 6.  Since my kid LOVES (understatement) trains, tractors, trucks, all that good stuff, this was a playground for him.  The only thing which would have made it better was if it hadn’t of been 96 degrees outside.

We caught the tail end of a freighter as we were pulling into Escalon.  I mentioned to my son that it would be perfect if another train came through.  At that moment right before I got to the tracks the lights came on & we watched this NB train go through.

For you movie buffs, this is Engine #3, who has been in over 100 movies, TV shows, and commercials.  For people in my generation, this was the engine that was used in Back to the Future III.  It is at the Jamestown Train Museum in Jamestown, California.

We got onto a tour & Adam got to play on one of the machines that was used to check the rails & ties.  You would push/pull the front (as Adam is doing) to move it forward/backwards.

Finally in Yosemite, playing on the rocks.

We took a quick trip to Tuolomne Meadows so the kid could get in his daily dirt fix.

Caught some deer as they were crossing the river.  I was wishing I had my 70-200 instead of the 85 lens on me.  I left the big lens in the car

Don’t even THINK about taking my chapstick!

Self portrait (gotta prove I was on the trip!) of me & Adam near the top of Tioga Pass

So I missed out on getting the post out on Friday since I had some friends in town and we decided it was time to go to the beach.  We headed out to Palm Beach State Park in Watsonville, CA.  It was fun seeing my little guy kind of get into the water this time, though he mostly just wanted to roll around in the sand.

It was the first time my friends little girl had seen the ocean & gotten to touch it since they live in Utah.

This is the reason why he is now nicknamed, “The Sandman”

Normally at home there isn’t a pile of sand he jumps on like that.  He normally finds me lying on the ground and does the same thing, landing on my chest.  Sometimes he’ll catch me as I’m lying down near the couch, and he’ll leap off the couch and onto me.

On Saturday I decided I was going to do my first 50mi bike ride as training for my Yosemite ride next year.  My route had about 40mi of flat/basically flat pavement and 10 mi of climbing.  I rode from my house to Henry Coe County Park Headquarters, and then back home.  I felt pretty good at the top of the climb, but the major headwind on the way home almost did me in.  I did make it in 3:28, which I was very happy about.

So the other weekend I drove to Yosemite with my mother/father in law, my wife, and our kid to drop off my in laws as they were off on a 3 week hike of the John Muir Trail.  On the drive home I got to thinking to myself, “My in laws are hiking the John Muir Trail, they (and my wife) last year hiked to the top of Half Dome.  My wife has done a trail marathon in addition to other 5k, 10k, and half marathons.  Its my turn to do something crazy like that.”  So while we were driving down Hwy 120 I decided I was going to ride my road bicycle from my house in South San Jose over Tioga Pass to Lee Vining.

According to the route I drew up in Google Maps, my friend and I are looking at an approx. 240 mile ride, climbing approx. 18,000 ft over 2 or 3 days.  It looks like I’ve got some major training to do in the next few months, since we’ve got the ride tentatively scheduled for sometime in May.

Otherwise we had a pretty good trip.  Our two year old decided after his nap he wanted to throw a big tantrum, but after he got to pet some dogs he was better.

A few random photographs from the trip:

View of Upper Yosemite Falls from the car as we were heading into the Valley.

We camped out at the Wawona campground for the night and let Adam do what he loves doing – playing in the dirt.

My in laws as they were about to leave on their hike.

Adam loves water, and this was his reaction as he saw the Yosemite falls before we hiked to them.

Yes, he climbed all the rocks on his own, I was just there making sure he didn’t fall.

In the midst of tantrum #1 from being too tired and needing to take a nap.

This little guy posed for us for a little while.  I was wishing I had my 70-200 instead of just my 85mm f1.4 lens.

And this is why he is called the “Dirt Monster”

The other weekend my wife had the chance to run in the Davis Stampede 1/2 marathon.  She had been training to run this as well as a marathon in April.  We ending up driving to Sacramento Saturday to visit the train museum, then we’d stay in Dixon that night since we had to get to Davis early.

We actually found a parking spot about a block from the start line the day of the race.  I guess thats what happens when you leave early .  I had decided I was going to drive around the course to different spots & get photos of Sara running instead of just hanging out at the start/finish line.  My in-laws decided to surprise Sara and show up, which she enjoyed.

She ended up finishing the race in about 1:59, which was a little shock to her since she didn’t think she was going that fast.

Since I didn’t have a photoshoot on Saturday we decided the afternoon would be a perfect time to goto the beach.  My wife had plans in the morning with Adam, so I enjoyed an hour or so of uninterrupted Mario Kart on the Wii.

We left San Jose around 2 or so and headed to Sunset State Beach.  Turns out the parking lot was full, so we were directed to a different beach.  It was Adams first time going to the beach (well first time going to a beach to play at).  He had a complete blast.  He spent most of the time playing around in the sand, he could care less about the water.  Probably since the water was pretty cold.

While the hiking group left at 2AM somthing I woke up with Adam & we left at 6:30.  We took a nice drive up one of the backroads to Hwy 120.  Adam did pretty good except that he didn’t like the sun in his eyes very much.  We played little games in the car on the way up, and he really enjoyed passing some trucks & going through some tunnels on the way to the valley

Since my wife was busy climbing to the top of Half Dome I was on Daddy Duty all day.  Because of that most of my images from the park are few and taken when I could just quickly snap something.  In the morning there wasn’t very many people in the park, but by the noon or so and later the place was PACKED.

After a few quick stops in the car, Adam & me took the walk to Lower Yosemite Falls.  About 50-60 yards past this picture, we saw a black bear!  I only had my 30mm lens on, and by the time I changed lenses to my 70-200 it had left.  I wasn’t in the mood to try to get a closeup with a wide angle

As we left the falls Adam started falling asleep, so I packed him up in the car & we drove around the loop so he could sleep.  I parked the car once or twice and snapped a few images while leaving him in the car (all windows down!!).  By this point I realized that my phone needs to be replaced, as when I got to the valley my phone had 3 bars of battery life, and 2 hours later the battery was out.  And I had no reception anyway.  I realized at that point I have to meet up with the rest of the family, but have no way to contact them!  As I went to the store I just happened to meet them.

We decided on the way home my wife would drive back in one of the other cars since they had A/C and after the hike she really needed it.  So I packed up Adam & we started driving home.  He wasn’t too happy, both because of the heat, and because he was stuck in his carseat again.  We had bought him a little stuffed bear at the store, and he held it the entire way back through the mountains.

My sister & law and her husband were in town last week, and we had all decided that as a family we’d head up to Yosemite so my father in law, two brother in laws, sister in law, and my wife could go hike/climb half dome out in Yosemite.

My wife, kid, and me decided to leave San Jose around 10:30 or so and head up to Jamestown to visit Railtown 1897.  My grandparents (and great grandparents) used to own a cabin up in Twain Harte, so as kids we’d always spend a weekend or two at the cabin every summer growing up so I decided even though we don’t own the cabin anymore it was time for my son to start heading up there to visit.

We didn’t stay too long since we noticed our A/C wasn’t working very well in our car and it was already hot outside.  We then headed to the gas station, got some ice cream, & headed out to Coulterville.

We then packed up & headed out to Coulterville to check in at our hotel, the Hotel Jeffery.  This hotel was built in 1851, and figured it it was good enough for Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir it would be perfect for us.

The final days of our trip were more of a time to relax.  Everyone was a little tired and wanted to relax before our 11pm train on Sunday night.  The time was passed having snacks and seeing who the champion at Mario Kart Wii was.

The next day on our trip saw as taking a quick visit to the little zoo at Thanksgiving Point.

After the zoo my dad and me drove around looking for some nice landscapes to photograph as well as anything else, and we noticed that after the fog had lifted, it had left everything covered in ice.

We photographed the California Zephyr (Same train we took to/from Utah) at around 9am in the morning.  The problem is this train was supposed to leave SLC at 11pm the night before.  Glad that wasn’t our train!