Day 12 – Yosemite (Unscheduled River Escapade)

We couldn’t get the kids to leave the KOA playground this morning. Personally, I should’ve left sooner. We were playing family tag. In my eagerness to evade Ethan, I zoomed down the slide in a hurry. My mistake was placing my elbows on the slide. I landed at the bottom of the slide with two badly burned elbows and the sad knowledge that Ethan had tagged me by a hair.

(P.S. Even multiple daily applications of aloe didn’t help a lot. After 2 weeks, the scabs were finally healing. Yes, I’m a wimp. But, I’m telling you – those elbows hurt for days.)

We drove an hour back into the park. (If you aren’t staying IN the park, there’s no place close to stay OUTSIDE the park.) Along the way, the Merced River accompanied us. Huge boulders dotted the middle of the river for miles.

Frankly, the river wasn’t that wide. It was more like a big creek. But, I’ll refer to it as a river to avoid another feud with Ethan!

We stopped for a quick photo . . . and stayed for hours. We walked down a short, steep incline to feel the water temperature. It was ice cold. (Imagine that – water running down the side of a mountain with snow still on top was cold.) The frigidness didn’t stop us from wading. (Well, okay, it stopped me.) But, not the rest of the family. I sat on a boulder in the middle of the river and dunked my feet occasionally.

My boulder also made the perfect perch to judge Pooh Sticks. (A game made famous by Winnie the Pooh, when he and Piglet throw sticks off the bridge to see whose will appear on the other side first.)

The rocks were slippery. After awhile, Autumn slipped and fell on her bottom. Her shorts were soaked. She looked at me – I guess she thought she was in trouble. I thought it was hilarious.

It wasn’t like falling in a pool full of chlorine. This was nice, fresh water with nothing in it to hurt her clothes – except good old-fashioned mud.

We stopped playing long enough to enjoy lunch by the river and change into swimsuits, before resuming the cold water frolicking.

We eventually hiked later in the day. But the highlight of the day (and possibly the whole trip so far), was the playtime in the river. It simply proves that the unplanned parts of the trip are often the best.

Westward Ho!