Photography by Pearl: Blanche and Lucy visit Yosemite National Park

Do you know who "Flat Stanley" is?....If you don't just ask any 2nd grader - they know. Blanche and Lucy were not the only ones on this trip.... our friend Annie took along Flat Stanley to experience different parts of the country for little Gracie and her school project to help her learn Geography.

Everywhere we went people knew Flat Stanley - all the Yosemite Rangers were very happy to have their photos taken with Stanley for Grace. Here Susan is taking Stanley's photo with this ranger for Annie to give to Grace. Annie keeps a diary of where Stanley is and what he is visiting so that Grace can find that spot on the map and learn about the world.

The first place we visited in Yosemite was the Mariposa Grove to see the giant Sequoia trees.

Here Susan and Cheryl are standing next to a fallen Sequoia tree.

They show you the perspective of how big the root and base of the Sequoia is beside them.

Looking upwards to see the tops of these giants gave us all a 'crick' in the neck.

This plaque talks about the 'Grizzly Giant' Sequoia which stands 209ft tall and is 96 ft in circumference. If you double click on this photo it will tell you more interesting facts about this and other Sequoia trees.

Co and Susan stand in the center cut-out in the trunk of the Grizzly Giant Sequoia.

And of course Flat Stanley stood in front of the trunk too.

You could actually drive a VW through the hole in this trunk.

Next - we visited the Bridal Veil Falls - a short hike to the base of the falls.

This time of year the falls are a bit sparse but still beautiful. I've come in the springtime when the melting of the snow creates a thunderous waterfall that you can hear long before you see it.

Cheryl took this close up shot of Bridal Veil.

On the way back to the car I saw this lovely little water fall crossing the rocks in a stream.

As we turned back every glance was another shot.

In the parking lot near our car were this hungry deer and her fawn munching on a tree. The wildlife here is so used to humans that they don't move along till you are very near to them.

Those of you who love photography - this is Ansel Adams country and every where you look you will recognize places where Ansel shot many of his famous photos - this is El Capitan. It's 3000ft from base to top and one of the most famous challenges for rock climbers.

We are very far from El Capitan (across a stream and meadow) yet look how little we look. If you double click on the image you will see - Annie, Flo, Anne, Cheryl & Pearl, Co and Susan. You can't tell - but there are climbers scaling this rock as we took this photo - they looked like ants to us.

Yep - those little ants are Cheryl, Pearl, Blanche & Lucy. All the dogs loved running in the meadow and playing while we took time to have a lovely picinic here.

Around sunset the more serious photographers among us stayed a bit longer to watch the setting sun on many of the beautiful sights in Yosemite. Reflected here is Half Dome in the distance. This granite dome rises more than 4737ft from the valley floor and is one of the more recognizable rock formations of Yosemite and of Ansel Adams photos. Thousands of serious hikers reach the summit of this rock each year.

Co, Susan, Cheryl and I stayed late on this evening to catch the evening glow on Bridal Veil Falls.

Cheryl took this shot of our photo group shooting the Bridal Veil falls as well as the stream below.

These 3 photos show the light changing as the evening glow plays on the water flowing downstream.

From our sunset vantage point we could also shoot El Capitan mountain as well. As we were shooting we noticed lots of activity around the face of El Capitain - a Helicopter kept circling with a person hanging from a rope tied to the copter.....

You'll have to double click on the next few images to see what's happening - but from where we were it was evident that there was a rescue going on.

Our little super camera with it's great zoom lens was able to get a close up of the hellicopter coming in closer to the face of El Capitan - here you can see how dangerously close to the granite face this copter is as the pilot expertly flies near enough to drop off the rescue guy on the rope.

Here you can see the rescuer being brought in closer (he's on the right) to the climber on the left who is in trouble.

Again our little compact camera's super zoom lens was able to catch the rescue guy on the rope coming in to help the climber in the crevice of the face of El Capitan.

And here you see they have the climber on the rope with the rescue guy lifting him away from the granite face of El Capitan. Sorry for the grain - the little compact camera's zoom is great but when enlarged the little compact sensors don't hold out as much as the big Nikon sensor.

And as we watched this entire rescue unfold - the hellicopter and the rescued climber flew away from the face of El Capitan and the climber was brought to an area hospital. The Yosemite search and rescue team conducted this daring rescue for an Austrian climber who had fallen and in the fall - lost his thumb.... but the happy ending to this tragedy is that the thumb was succesfully reattached due to the quick response of the team - to read about this even long onto this link: http://www.modbee.com/2011/09/28/1881916/climber-rescued-from-el-capitan.html

This plaque talks about the "Prescribed Burns" that occurs here in Yosemite and in many other forests. The Prescribed Burns are to help the forest reseed itself and the Sequoias grow tall and strong.

As we drove back from Yosemite on one or our many daytrips we drove through an area where the rangers were monitoring a burn. It was very eerie.

These photos were taken from our moving car as we drove past ......

I can't imagine what it must be like during a real forest fire - this controlled burn was very frightening to watch as we drove through.

The next evening our photo group - Susan, Co and myself - drove up to Glacier Point to capture the setting sun over Yosemite Valley.

The area we found was packed with people here to watch the same daily event - some with cameras and some just together quietly watching the beauty (though these two were a bit closer to the edge than we all liked to see...ah youth!

In the distance you can see the beginning of the setting sun's glow on Half Dome.

And all around the valley the warm glow lit up the granite rocks.

Half Dome glowed in the last of the setting sun's rays.

A little closer view of the Half Dome at sunset.

This photographer stood behind me and as the sun dipped below the horizon I noticed his form outlined in the sky.

Even after the sun set - the sky just lit up with beautiful colors.

With each passing moment - the view was in the west more so than on the valley as the sky lit up with colors and cloud formations.

And the last rays bid us goodnight.

The next day we all drove to Tuolumne Meadows for a picnic lunch - and of course Flat Stanley came along for the photos.

Here is a view as we look across the beauty of the Meadow.

It was amazing to me to see these little fir trees growing right out of the rock where there was just a crack of soil to feed the trees.

This beautiful lake was peaceful and calm on this lovely warm day.

You can barely see - but there is a little girl sitting on the edge of the water - relaxing with the same view that we were enjoying.

Here is our crew on the last day as we are leaving Yosemite. We stopped at the most popular place to photograph the panoramic view of the Yosemite Valley - left to right - Annie, Cheryl, Susan, Anne, Flo, Co and Pearl and of course Lucy, Luey and Blanche on our laps....

This is the beautiful view of the valley - from here you can see - El Capitan, on the left; Half Dome in the center and the Bridal Veil Falls to the right (you may have to double click to enlarge and see better)