Yosemite, A View of the Valley

(2 photos)
As you arrive in Yosemite National Park from the south, on route 140 from Merced, the first view of Yosemite Valley occurs as you come out of the tunnel. There is a large parking lot, as this is a very popular spot for a view of the Valley.

I must have been standing in a different place when I snapped this one (versus the photo below), I can't imagine the tree grew that much in the years between these photos. Of course I have no idea the year, or even the decade (we have visited Yosemite in 5 different decades), either photo was taken. And you can be sure that except for trees growing, nothing of interest has changed in Yosemite in those few decades.

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To the left is El Capitan, far in the distance (just above the tallest tree in the foreground) is Half-Dome, and the waterfalls to the right is Bridalveil Falls. Yosemite Falls is on the left, just past El Capitan, out of view in this photo.

Thirty or forty years ago, for my job as a computer software/equipment salesman, I attended a convention of Government Officials, held at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite. Can’t imagine what the room rates were in those days, but in 2005 the room rates range from $380 to nearly $1,000 a night to stay there. The hotel was built nearly 100 years ago.

I arranged to take a government official to dinner at the Ahwahnee Dining Room, which features a 34-foot high ceiling with large sugar pine trestles and ceiling-to-floor windows framed with stained glass. Emmy was with me as she was whenever possible, when I was going some place special, and as I had done, this official had brought his wife with him. The four of us were enjoying the food, and the view from the huge windows of the restaurant.

We were all discussing some travel adventures, and I mentioned an article I remembered in LIFE magazine perhaps 30 years earlier, where someone had visited all (at that time) 48 State Capitols. I said that we would like to do that some day, and I added as an aside, “Why else would someone visit North Dakota.” There was a sudden quiet as the lady across the table laid down her knife and fork and said, “I was born in North Dakota.” Well, she did laugh soon after she said that, but she did insist North Dakota was well worth a visit. (And we have visited N. Dakota — and 49 of the 50 — sometime during the years since.)