Yosemite

I just spent a week in Yosemite, during which time I hitched rides with 10 different amazing people.  Some were guides or outdoor educators, a swiss family in a motor home, who i got to watch as they saw the valley for the first time, one woman from the dominican republic who talked of her dream of a world without borders like the show futurerama suggests that she watches with her kids, one breast cancer survivor who crafts wind chimes and goes to Africa half of the year to help recovering child soldiers, one bro who wanted me to go boating, and one hippy who described to me the pinnacle concerts of the grateful dead, he appologized to me that his generation ruined a good thing: hitch hiking. But I never waited more than an hour.  The first day I hiked into the northern back country and was halted by a massive fever, which had me shivering in a sleeping bag for a day.  The cool thing was that, because I wasn't moving, nature carried on as if I wasn't there.  So I had a first row seat to it's spectacles in an altered state of mind.  My favorite was the covey of mountain quail that fed near me.  Feathered horn pluming out of it's head, wings sparkling iridescent.  The chicks less preoccupied with fear.  A deer grazed near me later in the day.  I woke up the next morning to find my water filter out of batteries, so I decided the backcountry wasn't meant for this trip, and I hitched into the valley of Yosemite where civilization was and where the heavy hitting wonders are.  One night I hiked up to mirror lake.  The next morning, I wrote this.

I've been watching a school of six carp glide silently beneath the surface of the crystal clear Tenaya creek.  Their bodies glow of green, almost phosphorescently, their image beautifully distorted by the ripples on the surface, which throw in elusive hues of rainbow.  A foot beneath them, on the brown-pebbled bottom is a web of dancing lines of focused light, like fingers of electricity, flickering in patterns beyond my comprehension. They flow continuously upstream with the breeze.  Above the surface a moth glides across the water drinking when it dips. A blue dragonfly hovers; orange, white and black butterflies flutter by.  On the banks, the grass is abundant and the sand is white.  The long slender willow leaves glisten in the sun.  From a hole in one willow branch a group of babies chirp their hunger to their woodpecker mother who cautiously approaches to transfer the green worm from her beak to theirs.  Vaux's swifts dart from bug to bug, they are one of the parks endangered species.

Beyond the willows are spires of ponderosas. And when the wind dies down, the reflection in the Tenaya reveals sheer cliffs.  I direct my eyes upward to see the mighty half dome 4700 ft above me, the sun has just passed the half-way point in the sky and has cascaded down its smooth, vertical, 2000 ft surface, streaked black with algae.

Here I am, sitting on a log, in the middle of all this. It's been a while since I've felt HERE, like this. 

To my right, an Indian man sets up his go-pro mounted drone, which he then controls to get sweeping shots of him and his girl, even maintaining control while kissing her.  When it flies over my head it sounds like a migrating beehive.  Now the crowds are starting to show up, a group of Asians scream and laugh as they cross the "cold" creek.  Babies pushed in strollers like kings are unaware of the fading luxury they have inherited.  Toddlers splash in novelty, a family picnics, lovers hug and take selfies. Many people have go-pros on poles documenting what they're seeing. Perhaps because of this longing to share what one is experiencing with people he loves.  Maybe a similar reason to why I'm writing this.