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.

San Jose California Wedding Photographer - Remember this day. The moments of your wedding captured to preserve your feelings for a lifetime

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.

San Jose California Wedding Photographer - Remember this day. The moments of your wedding captured to preserve your feelings for a lifetime