Mine Eyes Have Seen the Finger of God

Thursday

July 17, 2014

We are up early this morning. We have a tour of Yosemite that leaves at 8:45 AM. It is an all day tour. I am glad George has booked this. Now he can ride and look. I wouldn't let him look too much when we were coming in.
Our bus arrived right on time and we all loaded up. Before we left, the driver asked us to tell where we were all from. It was truly a mixed group. Uraquay, Japan, Wisconsin, South Carolina, California, and Denmark.
Herb was our driver. He has been driving buses at Yosemite for 18 years. I relaxed a lot. :)

Our first stop was at Glacier Point. You had the most beautiful view of the valley. You could see forever. The mountains, cliffs, and waterfalls. Looking down you could see the tops of trees and the green valley below. We stayed here for an hour and we enjoyed every minute of it.

We then went to the area where we would have lunch. Wawana Lodge was nestled in the forest. It had a large lawn with idarondack chairs, a fountain, and places to relax. We met a couple from Columbia, SC. They were our lunch partners. We had a wonderful time talking with them and sharing traveling experiences.

The tour then took us to Mariposa Grove. It is Yosemite's largest grove of Redwoods. They were huge. We took an hour long tram ride through the grove enjoying the cool breeze and admiring all the trees. The Redwood is one of the biggest trees in the forest and it has one of the smallest pine cones. It is about the size of a hen egg. The sugar coated fir has a pine cone the size of a loaf of bread. These hang from the tips of the topmost branches. Seeing these trees that are hundreds, no thousands of years old gives me renewed faith that God is taking care of this universe.

On the return trip we got take pictures at the end of a tunnel going in to Yosemite. We had been told by Ron Boswell this was the best place to get pictures and he was not wrong. When you come through the tunnel at the end it's like the majesty of God is opened up to you

Now for me crawling over those huge rocks to me was challenging but there are people here who love Half Dome and El Capitan. Rock climbers were going up and down all while we were there.  At one of our stops our bus driver was trying to point out some climbers going up the face of Half Dome. Goodness, I never did see them, even though I said I did. If you're climbing a mountain that big and you want people to see and pray for you, you need to wear a red shirt. When we returned from our trip we stopped and observed several more. Herb said some of them climbed with no ropes, hooks,  or nothing. All free hand.

To add to our excitement we saw a juvenile bear on the return trip over in the meadow.

At the end of the day, we walked over to near the bottom of Yosemite Falls. The riverbed was filled with huge boulder. Down near the bridge where we were there was a small current of water. Children and adults were climbing and jumping over these rocks having the grandest of times. George, Caroline and I found us a little private area and sat and enjoyed the water and watched the sun set on El Capitan.

He told us several interesting stories about life in Yosemite. He said once there was a slide and a piece of granite the size of two football fields slide off the mountain. He said it caused a gush of wind over 160 mph and it blew down trees. He also told of the 100 year flood and the damage that it caused.

Early supper and we returned to our room.

As I reflect at all the beauty I saw today, I truly believe there is a God. How all this could have happened with a big bang is beyond me. I truly saw God's finger and majesty in His creation today.