"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike. " John Muir




I don't know where to begin when attempting to describe Yosemite National Park but here are some thoughts: Towering rock formations, trees, flowers, waterfalls, meadows, rivers, wildlife and vast open space are some of the words that come to mind.
Yosemite Valley is a glacial valley carved out of granite. That means that the landscape is unique. Granite is a very hard rock, and glaciers are one of the things that are powerful enough to carve a valley out of granite. When glaciers carve valleys, they are  U-shaped. The results are lots of sheer cliffs, like Half Dome and El Capitan. 

Half Dome








El Capitan

A place so vast that it would take weeks to see all the beauty there. The glacial valley plus the elevation of the Sierra Nevada Mountains means there are tons of waterfalls, and really big ones.  I loved watching the Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls. It is easy to get lost in your thoughts while watching the water flow so gracefully down the rocks. Watching adults and children cool off in the water that pools at the base was almost spiritual.  The children's faces were priceless as they knew they were in a special place. 

The beautiful words that began this blog speak volumes to this spiritual place but they could speak to your place in space as well. John Muir's words fit my home surroundings when I am listening to the birds songs while drinking coffee in the morning or when I stop to sit for a while at night to hear the frogs calling. You see, I learned a long time ago from a native American man that beauty is around us everyday. It is in the sunrise and the sunset, the butterfly that lights on the milkweed that has graced your garden, the pounding thunder, the warm sunshine and the smell of the wind. Nature can heal you and feed your soul. Take it in....it is free to us all as long as we care for it.
How blessed I am to have come to this place.  I will remember it forever. I will teach my students about its beauty and importance with every ounce of my heart. I will tell them that this is a place that they can visit.....that they can explore. 


Did you know......In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed legislation giving Yosemite Valley and the nearby Mariposa Big Tree Grove to the state of California “on the condition that the area be held for public use, resort and recreation.  Championed by Sen. John Conness (R-Calif.), the Yosemite Grant included the first parkland the federal government ever set aside for preservation and public use. It set a precedent for the creation of Yellowstone as the nation’s first national park in 1872....

Merced River runs through Yosemite

waterfall pool at the bottom

Imagine this!

John Muir......environmentalist 

Stories of two native women who demonstrated the old ways in Yosemite for many years.

The falls still had water. It usually is dry from August to late fall