"moist notes from the vine"
I think that there is a line written in Stephen King’s novella, ‘The Four Seasons’ that states, “I’ve no idea what those two, young Italian ladies were singing about but it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.” Up until a few nights ago that was about as close as I’d been to the world of opera.
Hiking along the Mist Trail in Yosemite National Park, however, makes you re-evaluate your perspective a little. Whilst the lakes are stunningly attractive, Yosemite seems to offer wondrous vistas at almost every turn. The Mist Trail is simply littered with jaw-dropping moments and it was just as well both Karen and I took along our cameras for the amount of photographic opportunities it affords.
As we continued on our journey it was definitely noticeable that the number of hikers thinned out considerably. Whether this was because of the constant babbling of children spoiling their escape into this wilderness, having their food rations stolen by brave and hardy Stella Jays and Squirrels or the fact that the climb to the top of the lower falls is reasonably steep I’m not sure but I’d like to think that having the thought of standing one pace from a two and a half thousand foot drop at the top of Yosemite Point was enough to make you forget boisterous kids and brazen wildlife.
I was astounded at how good she, her husband and composer Jim Tomlinson and the bassist, pianist and drummer combined on a night, she divulged, they were playing together for the first time. During the show, which was split across two sessions and an obligatory encore, every song seemed to effortlessly release from her lips and melt into my ears like warm caramel.
Stepping outside into the daylight for the first time is always one of those simple pleasures I look forward to when camping. I think maybe one of the reasons for this is because, generally, pitching the tent the day or night before is normally done while being drenched by the watery juice of a giant, grey cloud. Friday had been no exception. So it was with a very glad heart that I stepped outside to see blue skies punctuated every so often by large balls of woolly, white fluff. The day (as was the entire weekend) was to be a good one, I thought…..