It took us about four hours to drive here. It was so hot the air conditioning in the car never really quite kicked in. We listened to CD's of Prairie Home Companion joke shows and talked about random things - most of them having nothing whatsoever to do with work.

El Capitan really is an amazingly huge cliff. We determined that the sheer lack of toilet facilities would be enough to prevent most of us from ever attempting to climb (no really, think about it. Nowhere to camp; you just hook your sleeping bag on and hang all night, and so when you have to go, well...). Half Dome is probably more impressive if I could see it from the dome side and not the half side.

There are a handful of scrappy grey and white squirrels who keep darting across the patio of my hotel room. They're joined by a cluster of some kind of jays, with little scruffy tufts on their heads. I think it's the squirrels I hear barking, but the little notebook of Useful Information in my room says that the mice around here can be pretty loud as well. I think I'd better take my allergy medication just in case, considering my sensitivity to rodents, and the fact that my eyes have been itching and sore since we entered the valley (it's probably not just the mice, is my guess).

I stepped onto the patio of my room here and took this shot. I've never been to Yosemite before and I'm not really going to have much time to see the park during the time I"m here, since most of the time I'll be inside, in meetings.

But still. Somehow it's hard to say business travel sucks, and mean it, when it includes things like this.