It was in the late spring that the Great Idea came to Aunty and me.  I don’t know which of us was really responsible for it, and there was a time when neither of us would own it.  A course in small “Why Nots?” made it come quite naturally at the last.  Why shouldn’t we drive into the Yosemite Valley before we went home?  By the end of May it would be at its loveliest, with the melted snows from the mountains filling its streams and making a rushing, spraying glory of its falls.  It did seem a pity to be so near one of the loveliest places on earth and to miss seeing it.  Aunty and I discussed the matter dispassionately under a palm tree in the back yard.  We honestly concluded that it wouldn’t hurt Grandmother a bit, that it might even do her good, so we began to put out a few conversational feelers, and the next thing we knew she was claiming the idea as her own and inviting us to accompany her!  In her early married life she was once heard to say to Grandfather, “Edwin, I have made up our minds.”  So you can see that Aunty and I were as clay in her hands!  Where we made our great mistake was in writing to the rest of the family about our plans until after we had started.  They became quite abusive in their excitement.  Were we crazy?  Had we forgotten Grandmother’s age?  What was C. C., a trained nurse, about, to let a little delicate old lady take such a trip?  They were much shocked.  We had to admit her age, but Aunty and I weren’t so sure about her delicacy, and anyway her mind was made up, so we burned their telegrams and packed the bags.

It happened twenty years ago, but I can see her sitting in a rocking-chair on the piazza of Leidig’s Hotel in Raymond, surrounded by miners, all courteously editing their conversation and chewing tobacco as placidly as a herd of cows, while Grandmother, the only person whose feet were not elevated to the railing, rocked gently and smiled.  Of course we planned to make the trip as easy as possible, and had engaged a spring wagon so that we could take more time than the stage, which naturally had to live up to a Bret Harte standard.  We made an early start from Raymond after a rather troubled night at Leidig’s Hotel.  You hear strange sounds in a mining camp after dark.  Every one in town saw us off, as Grandmother was already popular, and looked on as rather a sporting character.  Al Stevens, who drove us, was a bitter disappointment to me, not looking in the least romantic or like the hero of a Western story.  I shan’t even describe him, except to say that he smoked most evil-smelling cigars, the bouquet of which blew back into our faces and spoiled the pure mountain air, but we didn’t dare say a word, for fear that he might lash his horses round some hair-pin curve and scare us to death, even if we didn’t actually go over the edge.  I don’t think he would really have rushed to extremes, for he turned out to be distinctly amiable, and our picnic lunches, eaten near some mountain spring, were partaken of most sociably and Al Stevens didn’t always smoke.  How good everything tasted!  I don’t believe I have ever really enjoyed apple pie with a fork as I enjoyed it sitting on a log with a generous wedge in one hand and a hearty morsel of mouse-trap cheese in the other.