Today we went for a walk in Santa Cruz. We parked just north of the city and then walked down the coast to the wharf, a pier with a bunch of shops on it. We stopped for a while to watch the surfers and start taking notes for our lesson on Monday.
Last night we carved pumpkins. It took a little longer than normal because we did not have as many carving knives as we usually do. The kids had fun and Lucia especially had enjoyed helping to clean out everyone’s pumpkin.
Today we moved from Oakhurst to Santa Cruz. It was a quick drive, back through the agricultural valley. It is amazing how many trees, bushes, and vines we have driven past. 
Our third trip into Yosemite brought us back into the valley, for the mirror lake hike. It was a nice, relatively flat loop around mirror lake, which is mostly dry this time of year. One of the most exciting things is that we were very close to a bear and did not even know it. We were bummed that we missed it. A family hiking the other way said they had to turn around and wait for the bear to clear the trail. The group in front of us saw it, but not us. 🙁
Bass Lake is not far from our campground. There are many hikes around that area and today we did the Angel Falls hike. It was a short hike to a cool spot where a creek has carved out the granite, similar to the swimming hole at our RV park. Luckily the water was not flowing too fast, so we could get out and explore some. It is the first time in a while that we have had the little girls on their harnesses.
There is a river that runs near our campground and at the end of the campground there is swimming hole. Today we spent about a hour playing around the area. It is really neat because it is all carved out of granite, similar to Yosemite.
Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park offers beautiful views of the valley below. We visited there today after work to take in the view and for a short hike. The hike was great, but we were bummed because the sign at the beginning said the falls were 1.5 miles away, but at the 1.5 mile mark there was another sign that said they were another .9 miles. By that point the sun was going down so we had to head back. We finished in nearly total darkness, with a beautiful view of the stars.
Today we went into Yosemite for the first time. After getting settled in we decided to do the Vernal Falls hike.
Today we went out exploring, looking for a hike. I thought we had a place picked out, but when we got there it was closed due to fire restoration. We drove on and found a 50ft hike to an overlook. In California they call them vistas. I think we were supposed to be able to see a mountain peak, but it was covered in clouds, maybe.
