This morning, I was the first speaker at the Silver Tongued Cats and I decided to talk about my struggles with home automation over the years (and especially the past couple of weeks). Because I was using the speech for the “Understanding Vocal Variety” project, I chose “Home Automation Blues” as the title and exercised extreme vocal variety by literally singing the blues to start the speech – a capella and undoubtedly off-key. I wonder if a guitar would have helped?
After that, we took off for Yosemite (via Casa de Fruita), arriving at the Yosemite Blue Butterfly Inn just after 4pm. There’s a very nice view from the deck and lots of birds around – the owners told us that when the water isn’t flowing as briskly, you can see the fish swimming around.
![](https://readthisblog.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/P1002134.jpeg)
![](https://readthisblog.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/P1002138.jpeg)
We unpacked, got some advice, and headed off to the park to do a quick drive up to Yosemite Village before dinner. We stopped at several of the parking areas along the road and took lots of photos, mostly of waterfalls – but so far, I’ve only been able to get one of them uploaded.
![](https://readthisblog.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/P1002147-1-779x1024.jpeg)
Despite the technical difficulties, we’re off to a good start!
![](https://readthisblog.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/IMG_2849-1.jpeg)