On Tuesday we leave for St. George, UT. We have some business to attend to (such as renewing our car registration) before we leave on the real anniversary trip 6/12/07.
We think it will be fun to take the shorter distance but longer duration trip to St. George through Yosemite NP. We pack a picnic and decide to picnic by Lake Tenaya. Picnicking turns out to be a bad idea. Here’s a picture of John braving the elements at Olmsted Point. In the background is Half Dome, a granite dome sheared away by glaciation. It is so cold. Probably in the 30’s with the wind howling. We picnic in the car.
On a nice note, we ask a German tourist to take a picture of the two of us. We get to talking (in English, of course) and he tells us that he had just retired and this is his first trip to the United States. He’s been visiting for 5 weeks and tells us what a great country this is. That makes us feel good. With all the negative reaction around the world to American interventions and culture, it’s nice to find someone who still thinks we’re pretty okay.
We also pass Mono Lake. It’s a catch basin for the runoff of all the mountains around it. So there’s lots of inflow and no outflow. It’s full of salts and minerals that get more and more concentrated due to evaporation and the fact that Los Angeles has been sucking out the watertable below it. The level of the lake has dropped incredibly since the 50’s. There are weird mineral towers sticking up out of it called tufa.
