Monday the 23rd

I know in years past there have been flurries, snowball fights, thunderstorms and all sorts of inclement weather up here in the valley.  This year not so much. Sort of cold at night, but not really that bad, and by the time were ready to gear up the sun was out and the sunscreen was being put on (yes, we are checking).

From 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM we have what is called whisper hour, so that those of us asleep can stay that way.  Wonderful concept this whole whisper hour thing, reminds me of some other camping trip....

Anyways, the kids are pretty good about this, though there is some necessary plotting, scheming and general chattering that must go on any time kids, woods, tent cabins and flashlights are all combined.  The kids did not have a problem getting up this morning, they were excited and happy, despite the fact that there were no bear sightings during the night.  We did have a few late night bathroom visits (they come and get us for those) and for general roaming around the kids are all using the buddy system and staying within the prescribed boundaries that the YI people have given us.  Our breakfast slot is 7:30, so we do have to move along to be there on time, and being on time is important.  There are 7 or so other schools up here, and if we miss our meal time we go to the back of the line.  Breakfast was fine enough, not exactly Prospect, not even Louie's, but the coffee is Pete's and there was lots of bacon (by the way, a lot of your kids really, really, like bacon).  We are making sure the kids get hydrated up in the morning, between the altitude and the hiking we want to keep up with that.  It has not been a problem as the juice bar has quite a variety of flavors, and some of the kids now love this guava/passion-fruit combo that frankly does not seem all that appealing to me.  But hey, they are getting in the fluid so its all good.

After breakfast today we met our YI Instructors

We were divided into 3 groups, Mr Albert and Mrs Kelly in one, myself and Mrs Von Zedlitz in the second, and Mr Cotter and Mrs Boniface in the third.  The YI people are that sort of highly competent Northern California cool neo-hippie type that you would expect, a bit more Berkeley than Stanford if you follow me (oooh the Villegas and the Shadix are going to get me...).  Our group is lead by a nice young person named Adrien (Insert Rocky Joke Here) and she lead us through a naming game that involved making up a dance to correspond to the number of syllables in your name.  Not sure if the other chaperones were made to dance, suffice to say that even though I have only 2 syllables mine was pretty horrid.  After that we had our first of many circle times, which is the YI's preferred method of settling everyone down so they can get some instructional work in.

The only downside is that a lot of my pics will be my group - we all go different directions and though we did run into one of the other groups up by mirror lake, we don't interact when we are on trail, so we can keep group cohesion.  I am going to bully the other chaperones to take my camera so I can get a variety of content.  Our groups name is the Fuee Fuees (Sp).  Apparently they all had a game in kindergarten where they would pull their sweatshirts over their knees and jump around the playground saying "Fuee Fuee"...who knew? I am told that there was another group of martians on that same playground who said "Meep Meep" and they must have had a good time back then because they were all giggling about it as they explained it all to Adrien.

So Adrien, Kristine the Fuee Fuees and I all headed sort of East-ish from Curry Village after we went over a few more rules, talked about our theme of the day "You are all a  part of something bigger" and learned what it means to Chase a Coyote.  Chasing a Coyote for boys is much easier than Chasing a Coyote for girls, and while Adrien and Kristine managed that I made sure to tell the boys how lucky we all were that we did not have to deal with those sorts of logistics.  There seemed to be general agreement on this point, and I also went over the necessity of washing hands after said Coyote has been Chased...and also the absolute necessity of not touching me unless I actually have seen those hands being washed.

Group 2 (Kelly/Albert) also headed East, though by another trial, and the third group (Cotter/Boniface) went through the meadow to the west - it was swampy from what I gathered afterwards.  The general day is spent studying science (ecology, geology & climate change), playing games doing team building exercises all built around the theme of the day.  For our group we did one of those blindfolded hike walks where everyone helps the person behind them

 The whole thing about being blindfolded is you are never sure where you are going

As we happened to be near the base of North Dome, it made sense to look around some.

This one was never seen again..........jk












The YI instructors provide a picnic lunch, and everyone caries a part.  Today was pretty good: pita bread, hummus, cheese, salami, tomatoes and chips.  They were in fact very serious about the whole bandana thing, in addition to being used as blindfolds (above) we are suppose to catch are crumbs and put them into a crumb bag so we do not leave any food behind.





We stop every little bit and either play a game (zipper tag, camouflage) or an instructional moment.

Adrien has also assigned a few people to have jobs: we have a toast master, whose job it is to propose a toast from time to time, so everyone keeps drinking their water and stays hydrated, a moop master (moop = mess of other people) so when we find trash we pick it up and pack it up in the burlap sack that the moop master has tied to their backpack, and a psychic, whose job it is to answer questions like: when will we get there, when is lunch, what time is it and basically keep those questions away from the adults. 


The kids are journaling, which will be graded when they return.












They also got a bit of a pedicure in the Upper Merced river, and now they have a solid understanding that glacial runoff is in fact bitterly cold.





So far I think things are going very well.  There are tons of smiles, a sufficient level of goofyness and in general a lot of happiness.  At the moment they group is in Yosemite Village watching a movie about bears and talking to some big guy with dreads, who sort of looks like a bear.  Tomorrow night I here rumors of a night hike, so I will likely be posting late if I can get to it.  But just know that all is well up here.