A Cabin Without the Cabin Fever (Yosemite Report)
Oct 14th, 2012, 02:14 PM
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A Cabin Without the Cabin Fever (Yosemite Report)
The older son bid and won 5 nights in Yosemite cabin at a fundraiser in the special education school where his girlfriend works. It was nice to have a vacation knowing it’s also for a good cause.
Not all cabins are created equal, and we got the best. Our 17B cabin is a 3-bedroom house with everything that can be needed. We’ve enjoyed the fully equipped kitchen, TV with 1,000 channels, Wi-Fi, wooden furniture, walls and ceilings, 2 floors of convenience. A small store nearby – our sons walked over when we wanted to make s’mores in the fireplace. No, we did not sing!
The cabin has a very interesting choice of books for every taste and age. My favorite was about MOBA – Museum of Bad Art, yes, there is one in Boston! There are also some table games in the cabin, and the children enjoyed the foosball table they brought upstairs from the garage – this game is so loud!!
The location is North Wawona, in the middle of a pine tree forest – Ponderosa Pine is the most recognizable – and the air is so fresh, and it’s so quiet there off-season! But on the first morning we heard a knock on the door – a young woman went missing on a hike. Googled her name off the flier – the park rangers found her after a fall and bad injuries. Another visitor was a friendly dog on our last morning. We were leaving in the rain, I never liked fog, but Yosemite trees look so much better in the mist!
As for the wildlife, we didn’t see many this time, the kids saw deer on their Glacier hike, and out of the cabin we saw squirrels (interesting, when you look from a side, it’s like any squirrel, but from the back the tail looks flat with light gray border) and some birds, to mention one – blue wings and red cheeks.
The closest, to start our week in Yosemite, was Mariposa Grove. Amazing trees! As this was off-season, plenty of parking, otherwise we’d park in Wawona and took the free shuttle.
Sugar Pine Railroad – coming from the park, it’s on the left; we’ve almost missed it as there is no warning on the sign, just “¼ mile”. We got our tickets, waited for “all aboard” at 11 am as scheduled, waited, and waited, and waited… turned out they were waiting for a tour bus that arrived at 11.25, so we left ½ hour late. Not a word of apology from the railroad despite the guide being on the train with the live narration.
Of course the trip was great, and I recommend it, interesting narration, and a short stop to get water for the engine with plenty of photo opportunities, just a bit of not-so-sweet aftertaste from that ½ hour delay. Bring a jacket – all cars are open cars.
The highlight of our trip was certainly the Glacier Point. Excellent views on the Half-Dome (no, they haven’t found the other half yet, must’ve been stolen by the tourists), hiking trails from several minutes to several hours. One day we stayed in the cabin while the children took a long hike toward the waterfall.
We cooked in the cabin, ate out only twice on the way to and from Yosemite. New Thai Cuisine in Merced and Sugar Pine Café in Mariposa – both were OK, in both places some of us liked the food, and some of us didn’t.
Now off to research and planning the next trip – Puerto Rico and the Caribbean cruise.
(still working on photo edits and getting them from everybody)
Not all cabins are created equal, and we got the best. Our 17B cabin is a 3-bedroom house with everything that can be needed. We’ve enjoyed the fully equipped kitchen, TV with 1,000 channels, Wi-Fi, wooden furniture, walls and ceilings, 2 floors of convenience. A small store nearby – our sons walked over when we wanted to make s’mores in the fireplace. No, we did not sing!
The cabin has a very interesting choice of books for every taste and age. My favorite was about MOBA – Museum of Bad Art, yes, there is one in Boston! There are also some table games in the cabin, and the children enjoyed the foosball table they brought upstairs from the garage – this game is so loud!!
The location is North Wawona, in the middle of a pine tree forest – Ponderosa Pine is the most recognizable – and the air is so fresh, and it’s so quiet there off-season! But on the first morning we heard a knock on the door – a young woman went missing on a hike. Googled her name off the flier – the park rangers found her after a fall and bad injuries. Another visitor was a friendly dog on our last morning. We were leaving in the rain, I never liked fog, but Yosemite trees look so much better in the mist!
As for the wildlife, we didn’t see many this time, the kids saw deer on their Glacier hike, and out of the cabin we saw squirrels (interesting, when you look from a side, it’s like any squirrel, but from the back the tail looks flat with light gray border) and some birds, to mention one – blue wings and red cheeks.
The closest, to start our week in Yosemite, was Mariposa Grove. Amazing trees! As this was off-season, plenty of parking, otherwise we’d park in Wawona and took the free shuttle.
Sugar Pine Railroad – coming from the park, it’s on the left; we’ve almost missed it as there is no warning on the sign, just “¼ mile”. We got our tickets, waited for “all aboard” at 11 am as scheduled, waited, and waited, and waited… turned out they were waiting for a tour bus that arrived at 11.25, so we left ½ hour late. Not a word of apology from the railroad despite the guide being on the train with the live narration.
Of course the trip was great, and I recommend it, interesting narration, and a short stop to get water for the engine with plenty of photo opportunities, just a bit of not-so-sweet aftertaste from that ½ hour delay. Bring a jacket – all cars are open cars.
The highlight of our trip was certainly the Glacier Point. Excellent views on the Half-Dome (no, they haven’t found the other half yet, must’ve been stolen by the tourists), hiking trails from several minutes to several hours. One day we stayed in the cabin while the children took a long hike toward the waterfall.
We cooked in the cabin, ate out only twice on the way to and from Yosemite. New Thai Cuisine in Merced and Sugar Pine Café in Mariposa – both were OK, in both places some of us liked the food, and some of us didn’t.
Now off to research and planning the next trip – Puerto Rico and the Caribbean cruise.
(still working on photo edits and getting them from everybody)
Oct 15th, 2012, 02:28 PM
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Oct 19th, 2012, 02:23 AM
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Enjoyed your report, Faina! Glad you enjoyed a great trip. Nice to read the story behind all your beautiful pictures. The cabin looks awesome, nice winning bid!
Remember, I'll be waving to you from my ship
Remember, I'll be waving to you from my ship
