We’re sorry for the lack of posts this past week or so. We were hoping to post reports from the valley, but due to some server problems that I was not able to fix in the field, I was forced to abandon that idea. But we’re back and we’re putting together a travelogue for our special friends. And that includes all our blog readers! So without any further ado, here is the first installment:
The Shut Up and Walk Tour – Yosemite Valley, Fall 2006*
Each place we’ve traveled possesses its own character of adventure for Jayne and I, some more exotic than others.
From somehow losing the trail while hiking up a small mountain trail in Kauai, forced to scrape up and down the mountain, hanging onto trees and bushes to keep from sliding uncontrollably downhill, until the trail mysteriously reappeared just as suddenly as it had vanished; to insisting that the border guard at the Zimbabwe/Zambia border not keep our passports while we are driven across the border for a short air tour over the Zambezi River. Or perhaps the night hanging with the natives on Tobago, watching the cast of characters unfold as the night wore on… (what happens on Tobago stays on Tobago.)
Not the likes of David Livingstone, I presume, but adventurous enough for a couple of fat and happy Americans like us with an insistent twinge of wanderlust and an occasionally quirky view of the world.
Yosemite poses no dangers of foreign intrigue, and one need not be more adventurous, if one chooses, than showing up for dinner at the Ahwanhee Hotel without a jacket and tie just to see what the matri’d might have in the coat room for such occasion as to keep order and proper dress in the Grand Dining Room.
On the other hand, a person could grab a sleeping bag, a shovel, some matches, and take to the wilderness with only that and their wits to make it back out again.
We come down pretty much in the middle of those extremes with perhaps a bit of a slant toward the more comfortable in sleeping and eating arrangements. As in taking respite, on several occasions, for breakfast or lunch at the Ahwanee (after one early morning outing in full hiking regalia, including bandana, which, if I may say so, was something of a hit amongst the wait staff); but otherwise seeking out the quiet and solitude of majestic Yosemite that comes with some effort and contemplation.
In other words, we shut up and walk.
For the full implications of this philosophy we have developed over years of visiting natural places, please stay tuned, and all will be revealed.
*This is the first installment of The Shut Up and Walk Tour. At the end of this travelogue, you will have the opportunity of purchasing your very own Shut Up and Walk Tour tee shirt to help support the Quiet Hikers in Nature Association, which, by the time this travelogue is finished, may be called something entirely different, because I just now made it up. Enjoy!
