“Wait!” my granddaughter said, grabbing my arm. “I need to go first,” Grace clarified, stepping up to take the lead.
“Okay, now you can go, Nana.”
Like mother, like daughter, like granddaughter. She seems to come by her bossy tendencies naturally.
Grace doesn’t miss much, either; then again, being a three-foot-tall bundle of curiosity means the ground floor is certainly easy viewing.
I missed the mushrooms.
I felt like a 3-year-old during my first-ever visit to Yosemite National Park last month. Alas, if you can’t travel with a 3-year-old to impart wonder (for those of us a bit more jaded when it comes to life experience), simply choose a destination so magnificent, so sublime, so beautiful, that you’re reduced to childish wonder.
Spoken like a true grand dame!
Olmsted senior was chairman of the first commission to manage Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove and wrote a report recommending a policy for the care and protection of Yosemite’s scenery and wildlife. It is considered a classic national park treatise. His son (1870-1957) collaborated with the National Park Service and was a member of the Yosemite Advisory Board, a group of experts who helped park managers solve problems. Frederick, Jr. maintained a lifelong commitment to conservation, contributing the guiding language in legislation establishing the National Park Service.
Olmsted Point offered one of the easier hikes in Yosemite; okay, not quite as easy as our hike through Tuolumne Meadows earlier that morning. A half-mile hike roundtrip with a change in elevation of 100 feet (easy climbing, even for me!) took us to a outlook beyond the trees partially obscuring the view from Olmsted Point proper. Thirty minutes is a heartbeat in these parts.
Like Grace, the guys (Jimmy, my brother Chris, and my son Ryan) felt obliged to lead the way (my bossiness has mellowed with age); I let my child-like wonder be my guide, which was really driving us all to move at our own pace, in our own direction.
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