For Friendsgiving #2, we joined the Catalina gang in the Sierras.


We split the drive north with an overnight stop to see Grandpa Jeff and Oma Dot.


Chelsea found a vacation rental that easily fit four families. The house was near Oakhurst, about twenty minutes down the road from the Yosemite south gate. The "log cabin" was really just an normal home that had been enlarged with the cabin construction, the original walls were retrofitted with log fascia.


The arcade cabinets were a nice touch. The air hockey, ping pong, and pool tables were well above par. The foos table was flimsy but usable. The large, recent televisions aired football, Octonauts, and Space Mutiny thoughout the week. Down the road Cooley found a house with a decommissioned jet in its front yard.

Proximity to Oakhurst was nice for groceries and takeout, but at ~2,000 feet elevation it didn't have piney majesty of the upper Sierras. We also visited during controlled burn season (or maybe that is year-round).


My last set of hiking boots delaminated after many years of use so I picked these up. After a little breaking in, they were very comfortable.

Lewis Creek

Fifteen minutes up the road was Lewis Creek. The middle and upper hikes were short and flat enough that the 1-7 year olds handled them just fine.

Yosemite Valley

Twenty minutes from the Yosemite gate put us about ninety minutes from the valley floor. We did one day trip into the park to drive the loop and hike Vernal Falls. It had me wishing was stayed in the valley, though I'm not aware of any multifamily accommodations.

Ahwahnee Hills Regional Park

Nearest our cabin was the Ahwahnee Hills Regional Park. With dry grass and deciduous trees, the scenery could just as well be a regional park in San Diego or San Louis Obispo or Sonoma County. We had a nice walk nonetheless.


We took the kids to ride the old steam train.

The meme food for the trip was frosted Oreos.

With nine adults and numerous children, we mostly did meals - including the main event - from our own kitchen. On the way into town the first day we stopped by South Gate Brewing Company to await check-in o'clock.



(Stray finale spoilers, though the ending had no surprises.)

Since the forecast called for rain on all of our non-travel days except Thanksgiving, I brought the PS5. As it turns out, we only had a half day of rain but the evenings still called for some Overcooked, Katamari, and Stray.

As it turns out, Dani and I last left the game just short of its conclusion. The final sequence had a little bit of everything from the game - self-sacrificial NPCs, enemy robot evasion, and doing cat things to accomplish objectives (in this case, walking on keyboards).

The game ends with the cat walking into the sunlight, it's been long enough since we started the game that Dani didn't notice he wasn't reuinted with his friends.

No AWPs.

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