About a mile, About a hour, About this |--| far on a map.

Today was the day of our longest hike yet, we arose early(ish), ate our breakfast of oatmeal, and packed lunch. We drove about 30 minutes away to Hetch Hetchy, a man made lake that serves as the reservoir for San Francisco. During the drive we listened to a sermon by Pastor Tyler from Vintage 21, in which he spoke on the most important commandment, "Love your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength". It was a awesome way to start the day and I didn't really realize how much I missed getting teachings from someone way wiser than me. It was a breath of fresh air and really rejuvenating for me.

I was really hungry.

Once we got there we all put on sunscreen (see moms, we are responsible) and got ready to walk our legs off. The beginning of this 13(ish) mile hike started on the O'Shaughnessy Dam, which was quite cool to the 4 engineer's on the trip (the scenery was cool to Stephen). Now before we go any further I
have to give you some back story. I (Keegan) weigh around 150 lbs and stand at 5'10" and am the fattest guy on trip. If any of you have seen 101 Dalmatians, I am the one in the corner of the frame always saying "Mama, I'm hungry". That being said, as soon as we got out of the van to start our hike I was getting hungry and starting to regret only packing 2 sandwiches. As we continued up the hike, my stomach began complaining to me about being malnourished and underfed even though we had ate 1 and a half hours ago. About a mile later it started. It began as a quiet and half-hearted comment about eating lunch in a beautiful place we were passing. Slowly, it became more and more of a hurricane of remarks about food, lunch, and a certain person being hungry. All this being said, most of the group just ignored me and we kept trekking over rock and under stone.

Getting back to more important matters, this hike was my favorite. It might have been really long and a
good portion of it was uphill, but there were rocks, streams, and waterfalls everywhere. We jumped, skipped, hopped, and slipped our way up the peaks and valleys, finally getting to our destination of a bigger, closer waterfall and LUNCH. Oh glorious, glorious lunch! I had a PB&J, Ham and cheese sandwiches, … and lots of other food. Needless to say, it was quite satisfying.

After eating lunch (yum), we went exploring up part of the rock, but there was only one problem. We all went, so no pictures of that part. I then did a little exploring by myself, as most everyone else took a nap. For the sake of all parents reading this, during our whole time exploring we were completely safe and danger free the whole time **cough cough**.

See that little tiny dam over there? That's where we started.

After napping and exploring we headed back down with the longest and most extensive game of the name game yet. We spent the next 2 hours down spewing out names and thinking hard about names of famous people that started with 'Y' and 'W', as those seemed to be the hardest. We finished and drove back, all very much tired but feeling satisfied and accomplished. We got back and started up dinner, and sat around for a while waiting for dinner to be ready. After eating we got out books and started making cookies which just so happened to take FOREVER. So after about a hour and a half, the cookies were finally done (and by done, I mean we were too tired of waiting and just ate them, all doughy and uncooked). After talking with a ranger for a little bit, we all headed to bed, ending another eventful and interesting day.


Inspired Author: Keegan

Location: Yosemite Park.