Yosemite Visit - Three Cheers For Global Climate Change... Holla

Global climate change is so underrated! Taking the long way home through Yosemite on Memorial Day brought that point home to me like no other place has. Every time we visit Yosemite, I'm keenly aware that I'm feeling every cliche known to man having to do with man's place in the universe.

Stuff like; I'm so small, so insignificant... so puny and powerless in the face of nature. I am a mere speck - probably more like a micro speck on a micro speck in this universe - like a Who in Who-ville. And yet... I'm important. Infinitely important. I'm more than just an organized mass of cells. I have a spirit and a purpose. In this vast vast universe, God actually cares about little ole me.

Then I feel all corny and grateful and all that.

But back to global climate change. It was one of the major forces that created the Yosemite Valley, with multiple alternating ice ages and warming trends. Glaciers repeatedly formed and receded, formed and receded.

This view from Glacier Point is quite stunning, and it's easy to imagine an ice-blue glacial flow covering all of the green area down in the valley. What's harder to imagine though, is that at times, ice covered the entire area, including Half Dome and El Capitan. Melting glaciers are what exposed the massive granite formations that were formed deep below the earth's surface hundreds of millions of years ago (yes, I have been watching lots of History Channel and reading too much wikipedia). It's unfathomable really. And you can call me crazy, but I kinda sorta think that no amount of tax payer money, world climate change summits, legislation, Michael Moore films, 'go green' products, celebrity admonishments, concerts to raise awareness, carbon credits earned or trees planted, could have hindered or altered the formation of Yosemite, or anything else on earth for that matter, in any way!

Cue the music now please...

I would like to take this opportunity to publicly express my gratitude to Global Climate Change - I know it's true ;-) I'm so grateful for the beauty it has created in this world over the last 4.5 billion years (amazingly all before the internal combustion engine). Without it, I would not be here. But I would be remiss if I didn't specifically mention Global Warming. I'm so grateful it ended the last ice-age 10,000 years ago so I could be here writing this blog post, not to mention living. I'm grateful for the food and plant life it makes possible, and for just the right amount of oxygen - not too much, not too little - just right. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt and with every fiber of my being, that I would rather live during a warming trend than during an ice age. So can I get a 'what what' for Global Warming? Holla. Amen.

Eva, Ella and Sophie at Glacier Point in 2004

At Glacier Point in 2009

Overlooking Yosemite Falls - Sophie's arm is not broken... Matt and I just make weird elbows

Something even smaller and more insignificant than me

Something definitely significant

The Hamrick Family - proudly brought to you by Global Warming (and other 'significant' forces)