Old Memories....Yosemite

I had never entered Yosemite from Big Oak Flat Road. That left hand turn from the Tioga Road onto Big Oak Flat took me through a section of the Merced River Gorge. The narrow two lane road skirted the edge of the gorge. Oaks arched out over the lanes, casting shadows pierced randomly with the dappled light of the late afternoon sun.

It had been fifteen to twenty years since I had last been in the Valley. I simply could not remember exactly how long. And when I finally entered the Valley proper I was seeing it from a completely different pesrspective than I had ever experienced. The road came in at "ground level", in contrast to the tunnel entrance on the Wawona Road where one first sees the Valley from an elevated perspective.

I can only describe the experience, upon seeing the Valley open up to view, as entering a roofless natural cathedral....breathtaking in beauty and majesty...overwhelming in size and power.

Across the Meadow:  Late Afternoon

My immediate goal was to get to the Ahwahnee Hotel and see if chance looked kindly on my wish to stay that night
in any, I repeat, ANY room available.

The Ahwahnee Hotel was built and opened in the 1920's. It is "real", in that the granite blocks and huge timbers with which it was constructed are not some Disneyesque imitation of the those materials. They simply don't build things in that manner anymore.The Great Hall and the Dining Room are remarkable for the grandeur of the design and space.





Mrs. Curry's Room...Top Floor

Thirty-seven years earlier, almost to the month, the first days of our honeymoon were spent at the Hotel. By some stroke of luck we ended up on the top floor in Mrs. Curry's private room....(she had passed on some years before, of course). The Curry family was involved in establishing many of the tourist facilities in the Valley in the twentieth century. The old lady was allowed to stay at the Hotel in her retirement. Access was by special key to the elevator. The picture to the left shows the small balcony and the bank of windows that came with the room.




The Dining Hall at the Ahwahnee

Many years later we stayed with the boys at the Hotel...and any subsequent vacations at Wawona always involved taking breakfast or lunch in the Ahwahnee Dining Hall.
Every Christmas season the Bracebridge Banquet is presented in the Hall. A program of entertainment and caroling, the production is a tradition started many decades ago.

Perhaps I shall see it someday....somewhere.....some time.






Upon walking into the lobby I stopped and took in the near chaotic scene...I thought "Lord! There are an awful lot of old people here." That, and tourists from France, Japan, Germany, Italy, Mexico and the Commonwealth countries....a babel of tongues. It was the first and only time on the trip that I felt daunted by the situation.

The clerk smiled an amused smile when asked if there was ANY room available at ANY price. There was none and I was offered the opportunity to put my name and phone number on a waiting list with twenty other names. It was hopeless.

But there was always the hotel Book Store....an irresistable attraction to one such as I. An hour later,carrying ten or twelve pounds of books, I emerged and looked at the sunset-lit sky.

I had no lodging for the night.....

SRH