Welp...see ya later...

Ladies and Gentlemen…I’ve seen the great wall of China, I’ve been to the Egyptian pyramids, I’ve bowed in the presence of Marshall Somers, I’ve seen a grown man pleasure a moose, I’ve lived to see same sex marriages legalized in California, I’ve seen Eli Blackman wrestle a bear to the ground while scrolling through an ESPN article on Greg Oden, I’ve seen Drew Curhan single-handedly perform the greatest mini-hoop basketball dunk of all time but I have never seen anything as spectacular as Yosemite National Park. Yosemite took the cake in terms of national parks in part because we could actually see the park because we had beautiful blue skies and balmy 90 degree temperatures and partly because the place is gorgeous. We were lucky enough to snag a first come first serve campsite on our first day, and since we were exhausted from a long day of driving the day before and an early wake-up call that morning, we decided to take it easy. We ended up “exploring” the merced river as one of the rangers us told us to do, and we found a SWEET swimming spot with a small beach on the opposite side. There was one small problem though…the river was running kinda fast and we had sandwiches, beer, and other stuff to get across the river. In the end we decided to caulk the wagon and ford the river…amazingly enough, all of our stuff made it across and we posted up on the beach. The water was freezing (not surprising) but it was definitely nice because it was a scorcher outside. The place was cool because there were a couple rocks to jump off and to chill on. Someone must have put in a call to all the major magazines, because the paparazzi were all over us…I can understand them trying to get a shot of the infamous Marshall Somers with his chiseled body and all, but I was shocked they wanted anything to do with Pete Sneeringer on their film. In any case, we had at least 5 cars stop and take pictures of us chilling on the beach…I’m still waiting for them to show up in GQ. Of other importance, Pete earned his trail name while we were at the beach…it is Sinking Log. I’ll let you all try to figure that one out….but seriously think about it.
That night, we were lucky enough to be joined by two other people…Mr. Jacob Pearson and his sister Leah. Man, was Jake a sight for sore eyes…we needed some fresh man to mix it up. The next day, we decided to do a hike in Tuolumne meadows called the Cathedral Lakes. The hike was beautiful, and we were rewarded with a gorgeous/shimmering lake that was bordered by some snow covered mountains. It was general consensus that we needed to jump in the water, and as we were about to get into the freezing waters, somebody else sitting on the edge of the lake felt it was necessary to remind us of the possibility for shrinkage if we jumped in…thanks woman, but i’m pretty sure we all knew of the consequences of jumping into low-40 degree water. In the end, the lady gave us some props when we saw her on the trail. The water was as freezing as it looked and nobody spent more than a few seconds in there besides Eli who had emerged to show an insane ability to tolerate freezing water..he’s coming back as a sea otter in his next life. That night, we all went to a buffet in the most touristy part of Yosemite. We stuffed ourselves in part because we were starving and because we had a big hike the next day…Half Dome!! The other important note about this night is that the boys in Green clinched the NBA championship with a demolishing of the Lakers…the important side note to this is that I’m super happy that ray ray, pierce, and KG got their championship (especially my homeboy ray ray), but we also discovered the extent to which KG is crazy and that Big Baby still has not lost his baby fat.

Okay, this is long enough for our first post in a while…but we’ll be back soon with a recap or our excursion up Half Dome! Pete and I are close to Santa Barbara and we just hit the beautiful coast…we’re about to be reunited with Flying Squirrel. On another side note...two of the original massexodusjourneymen have sadly departed the trip today, and they will be sorely missed. THey gave us some explanation about having to find a job or something like that..i don't know, i wasn't really paying attention...

--Moose Dropping