IT'S VACATION TIME
So, where are you and the family going to spend your summer vacation?
There are many places to go to in Northern California: the beach, the mountains, or the city. From Foster City, you can take a short ride to the beach, forty-five minutes; to the Sierras, about two and half-hours; or a city, thirty minutes.
Because the weather turned nice and because of the cost of gas, we decided to go to a place where it's nice in the morning, warm in the afternoon, and somewhat cool at night--that's right, Yosemite: In Yosemite Valley, you park your car because you can't drive around, it is one way to save gas.
After we drove in to the parking lot at Yosemite Lodge, we registered and settled in to our room. Now we are here in Yosemite, what is there to do? We could spend time walking around, we could rent bicycles, or we could take a tour on the tour buses. Because we could take a quick tour around Yosemite Valley to get an idea on where we could spend time investigating--Mirror Lake, Half-Dome, the valley meadow, the museum,etc., we decided to take a tour bus.
When you go to Yosemite, you can have several adventures. One, getting there, if you stop to visit California's history sites; two, just walking around the valley floor and observe what's going on.
The best way, in our opinion, to go to Yosemite is on Highway 120. It is cooler and more scenic. If you go in on Highway 40, you have to spend more time in the California Central Valley's heat, which could get up into three-digits. On one of our trips to Yosemite, along Highway 120, we stopped at the Moccasin Fish Hatchery, and looked at the trout that they were going to plant the next day.
These trout, several hundred, were kept in a holding tank. In the morning, they would be placed in a special truck: a big regulated type of tank, on the bed of the truck, that would take the fish to an area like a lake, a stream, a river, or a pond to be released. These trout, from the fish hatchery, would be planted early in the summer and sometimes late in the year so that they could grow all summer or all winter, before a fisherman catches them.
Several years ago, a fish poacher tried fishing at the fish hatchery, of course he was arrested--illegal fishing, fishing without a fishing license, and fishing late at night. But what he did not know, with a trout license, and permission, you can fish below the fish hatchery spillway.
After our tour on the bus, we went back to our room. My wife was going to take a nap, and I decided, with my daughter, to take a walk to a close-by meadow. It was late in the afternoon, and we were told that the animals would be there feeding.
As we were walking along the side of the road, to the meadow, we past a ranger's patrol car with the park ranger standing along side it. As we passed, he yelled, "High Sid!" I turned around and it was a ranger, who I worked with several times, when I was a sheriff deputy for Tuolumne County.
We walked back and talked for a few minutes. I introduced my daughter to the ranger. He said, "You want to see something? Look at that deer. Now, look at the people who stopped their car. See them getting out, the driver has food in his hand. He, probably, going to approach the deer to give it the food. Look, the deer is going to take it." When the deer went to take the food, the driver yank it away. He looked at the people from the car and started to laugh. Again, he held out his hand for the deer to take the food, and when the deer went to take it, he pulled it away. He turned to the car, where the passengers were standing outside and laughed. For the third time, he held out the food for the deer. This time, the deer leaned on its hind legs and jumped towards the man, with its front hoofs aimed at him--but missed by a few inches.
The driver saw us standing near the patrol car talking, and he ran up to us screaming, "The...deer attacked me, the deer attacked me! Did you see that?" The ranger said that he saw what happened, "What do you want me to do?" "Shoot it, it's dangerous." "Ok, but first, I'm giving you two citations: one, for feeding wild animals; and two, for teasing wild animals. Now, I take your suggestion under consideration."
I said to the ranger, "Your busy. I will talk to you later. Here's our room number at the lodge." My daughter and I stayed at the meadow for a while longer, and them went back to the lodge.
Like I said earlier, you can always find adventure, if you want to, when you go on a family vacation.
