I'm getting sick of arriving back to the Bay Area and finding it freezing.

I took a day trip to Yosemite today. I'm starting to wonder about these solo excursions of mine. Am I trying to make a point to myself? Families, youth groups, religious (cult) groups, couples. We need our people, our communities, that's what makes living wherever worth it, San Francisco, Tucson, Portland, Yosemite, the place doesn't matter. It's the people.

Needless to say, Yosemite was gorgeous. I think people go there just to be in the peace and tranquility of the place. Although I get a little disturbed by the constant feeling of something looming, that being the canyon walls. Even when you can't see them, you can sort of feel them. Yosemite is kinda the opposite of the Grand Canyon. Instead of going to the rim and hiking down, in Yosemite you enter at the bottom and hike up. I tried climbing the Four Mile Trail to Glacier point, a 3200' ascent, but I abandoned 200' shy of the top because of vertigo. There was still snow up there, and there were sections of the trail where it was necessary to negotiate snow covered trail. I was doing alright until I hit one patch maybe 15 meters long, but it was really steep, and sheer with a cliff going down, down, down. Other people had crossed it, so there were footprints to match to get across, but I got halfway across, my fingers were stinging from the snow, and I was just looking down, down, down. I turned myself around and headed back, humming the "Brave Sir Robin" sequence from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"*.

Yosemite Falls was a raging torrent with the melting Sierra snows. I just stared and watched the water falling in its power and fury for the longest time. Shunryu Suzuki made an analogy of life upon watching Yosemite falls, how we are like the individual drops falling, but once we hit the bottom, we're all the same stuff, part of one big thing. I wonder if he got wet when he was there.

*"Brave Sir Robin"
part I
Bravely bold Sir Robin rode forth from Camelot.
He was not afraid to die, O brave Sir Robin.
He was not at all afraid to be killed in nasty ways,
Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Robin!

He was not in the least bit scared to be mashed into a pulp,
Or to have his eyes gouged out and his elbows broken,
To have his kneecaps split and his body burned away
And his limbs all hacked and mangled, brave Sir Robin!

His head smashed in and his heart cut out
And his liver removed and his bowels unplugged
And his nostrils raped and his bottom burned off
And his pen--

part II
Brave Sir Robin ran away,
Bravely ran away, away.
When danger reared its ugly head, he bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly, he chickened out. Bravely taking to his feet,
He beat a very brave retreat,
Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin.

part III
He is packing it in and packing it up
And sneaking away and buggering up
And chickening out and pissing off home,
Yes, bravely he is throwing in the sponge.