MELT DOWN - Monday, day 2 of Travel Log

After our Exploration Day we hit the road on Monday June 14 and traveled for more than two hours to get to the higher elevations of Yosemite, up to 9000 feet. Since it is more than 260 miles driving (back and forth from our cabin), we mostly don't take this tour not more than once a week.
We thought and had prepared for rain this week, but the higher we came the more snow we saw. For you who live in the North these are such common pics, but it's kind of unusual to see this in a supposedly desert climate in June!

 Thought this was an interesting pic -half snow, half not.

 What a nice surprise, June! Sometimes it was funny, like seeing our usual lunch spot at Teneya Lake at around 8800 feet

What do you have in your picnic basket for lunch? A snow cone may be?

Some things were  surprising. One of the well known features of  North side are the beautiful meadows. Now it was just a brown soggy mess! The supply store for the North side is a big tent, which had just been set up, and they had not opened it up for the public yet.  
You'll have to wait with your ice-cream till we're in the valley, hon. The camping sites here were also still closed. No wonder we didn't see the backpackers! As far as we could see, the horses and mules were not in the stables yet.

I've more beautiful pics than these, but the ridges in these mountains are intriguing to me. 

You can see how high we are here on the sparseness of the vegetation. 

Bare, nonetheless beautiful!

Then there are times that nature plays a trick on us.
We saw this lake with many reflections where a number of people were taking pics. Never had been there. We didn't have snow boots on, since we were unaware there would still be snow up here, so we were slipping and sliding down to the lake. 
I lost track of hubby, who had the camera, so I went looking for him. 
Then I saw this photographer on a little patch of land in the lake with an ski stick. Hmm, I wonder what he's doing with a ski stick?  Well I was soon to find out

When I turned around, I saw hubby. I asked him for the camera. I went a few steps ahead to show him the scene, and..."Whoa" I yelled. My right leg sank  about 27 inches into the snow to mid-thigh. I quickly sat, so my leg would not sink in further, because I no idea how deep this was. 
I tried to move my leg, but I couldn't wriggle it out, because I could not bend my knee. My other leg was in a 90 degree angle on the snow, so I was stuck! Ooh, was I glad that hubby was only a few steps behind me! He had to pull me up, but not before he had a good laugh.  The photographer I saw with the ski stick before had probably some similar experiences!

There is stunning beauty on the higher elevations. 
Hubby was going to fish and I was going to paint. This was the scene I painted. I did not last long, maybe an hour, because it was here almost 60 degrees, my body system used to 80 degrees, and it was windy. My fingers started hurting and got so cold, that I ended up shivering in the car, feeling kind of sick. 
Then I remembered that there is less oxygen at 9000 feet, so I started focusing on breathing deeply. A little later I felt okay.
Most of this painting I'll have to do in my studio  (which all of you know is my living room)!

The rest of the time we enjoyed taking pics. If it was snow, mountain, 

or water coming onto the road, you heard the click of our camera.

My "little somethin" today is this. In Dutch we have an expression "a see through" that denotes a scene as if someone looks  through a key-hole. I thought this was a poetic "see through". 
Is there an English word for it?

Not to forget, we did get that ice cream later in the valley, on our way back to the cabin:)
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