Celebrating in Yosemite

We planned the celebration before the event I ended up celebrating.

We go to Yosemite National Park often. With all the rain (and snow in the mountains) California has had this past winter after five years of drought, the 80 to 90 degrees weather we had last week started the snow melting. The local news programs warned us the Merced River which runs through Yosemite Valley is running high, almost in flood stage. On top of that, there is a lot of construction happening in the park and parking is limited.

Merced River just outside the park off Hwy 140

Time for us to go! Wednesday -- middle of the week -- school isn't out yet -- newspapers warning we should wait until later -- shouldn't be too many people.

Meadow in Yosemite Valley -- green with standing water

Wrong! Evidently, about half the world's population didn't get the memo, because they were there, too.

Water level really was high -- more than I recall ever seeing it, although I missed the big flood of 1997.

As it turns out, it was a day of celebration for me. I have been struggling to finish my latest manuscript. What I thought would be between 27K and 40K words like my other books in the Eastern Sierra Brides 1884 series turned out to be longer.

Much, much longer. It ended up at 78.9K words. A full-size novel. A behemoth.
 

El Capitan on left, Sentinel Point. Cathedral Rocks & Bridalveil Falls on right

The way things were going -- more research for this book than any other than the very first one I wrote -- I had no idea I would finish this week, let alone before our planned trip. However, TUESDAY turned out to be one of those marathon days where I churned out 7,600+ words. 

Yosemite Falls

Are all those words good words? Keepers? Like the photo of Yosemite above, I doubt it. Especially the last 7,600 are questionable. I see a lot of cutting, tweaking and editing in my near future.

Next week.

The balance of this week after Tuesday has been time for R & R -- Rest & Recreation for both me and my manuscript. Next week will be soon enough to see if I turned out a majestic masterpiece or a real mess.