June 2010 Vacation Cont'd: Yosemite-Day Two, Part Two: Mostly Waterfalls

After we left the Mariposa Grove, we headed back toward Yosemite Valley so that we could take the same pictures that at least 800,000 other people probably took that day!  But, hey, it's worth taking, especially when you have a beautiful clear day like we did.  This is the Tunnel View...view.

That's El Capitan on the left, Bridalveil Fall on the right, and Half Dome tucked away in the back.

Driving from Tunnel View back into Yosemite Valley, we saw a bear.

Hello, Mr. Bear!

And a bunch of other stunning sights...most of them waterfalls, apparently.  

Ribbon Fall from Southside Dr.

Bridalveil Fall from Southside Dr.

Yosemite Falls (Upper and Lower) (and lots of mosquitos) from Southside Dr.

Yosemite Falls from Lower Yosemite Fall Trail

Lower Yosemite Fall

Yosemite Creek

My "This is beautiful, but I'm about ready to go." face.

I don't think we got any pictures of Horsetail Fall, but if it had looked this this, we definitely would have! Wow.

And that concludes the Yosemite portion of our summer vacation.  From here we spent the night back in Mariposa, then got on the road to Sacremento to catch our return flight to HNL.  For a trip that was largely unlplanned, this turned out to be a great vacation. 

   

(If you're like me, you'll go crazy combing through this post, trying to figure out what point D corresponds to.  It doesn't correspond to anything.  I just had to put that in there as a waypoint to get my route to come out correctly.  I apologize for any distress this might have caused!)

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June 2010 Vacation Cont'd: Yosemite-Day Two: Big Trees!

Okay, back to our tour of Yosemite!  We had talked about visiting the Sequoia National Forest and/or  Sequoia and King's Canyon National Park on this trip, but that proved to be just a little too far out of the way for us, so we were psyched when we found out that there are sequoias in Yosemite!  Who knew?  Well, probably lots of people, but still.  It was a happy surprise for us!  So, after a nice rest in Mariposa (point C on the map below), it was back into the park and down to Mariposa Grove (point E) (Don't worry about point D--it doesn't correspond to anything.)  Parking was full, so we were looking at having to park and walk a fair distance.  Luckily, a shuttle bus came by just about then, and we were able to jump on.  Yay!

Once we got up to the grove, we did what we never do, and jumped on one of the trolley tours.

This way we knew we would get to see the whole grove, make it back in time to catch the shuttle bus back down to our car, and still have time to check out the park some more.  Although we would have liked more time to meander among the trees, this was still a nice tour.  We did get to stop and walk around at a couple different locations.

We even saw a deer!  I would have gotten a cool shot of him (her?  I can't tell) framed up in the burned out portion of the tree, but when the other people with cameras started running toward him to get a picture, he took off.  Go figure.  See what I mean about people ruining my wilderness?   

Anyway...we saw a deer!  And the Grizzly Giant. 

See that giant limb on the left?  It is 6+ feet in diameter!  I feel so insignificant!  (By the way, this shot of me would have been centered better on the tree, but someone started running after me with a camera and a got spooked and started shuffling off to the side.)

From here we left to head back into the valley to see what else there is to see.  Join me tomorrow for the wrap-up.

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June 2010 Vacation Cont'd: Yosemite-Day One: Orientation

After a stunning lead-up to Yosemite National Park, we were starting to get excited.  If it was this pretty on the way to Yosemite, Yosemite itself must be amazing.  And it was.

We came in on the eastern side of the park, from Lee Vining (see map below, point A), and even though it was toward the end of June, there was still plenty of snow and ice floating in the water.  After about half-an-hour of driving, we caught our first glimpse of one of Yosemite's famous landmarks, Half Dome.

Wait, where is it?

Oh, okay, got it.

Along with Half Dome, we saw some more impressive cloud formations.  

So, after this, our first official sight-seeing stop in Yosemite, we wound our way down into Yosemite Valley (point B).  Somewhere along the way, we detoured and found the sad remains of a forest fire.

Upon closer inspection though, it was clear that this area was making a comeback, slowly but surely.

By the time we got into Yosemite Valley (map), it was nice and warm and not snowy.  And packed to the gills.  Oh my God.  I hate people in my wilderness, and this place was swarming with them!  Seriously.  The area is beautiful, but once you get into the heart of the valley, where all the lodging, shopping, and food is, it is absolutely stressful.  Maybe the newly implemented park and ride program will help with some of this, but I think it is still going to be chaotic.  If we had driven straight into this (i.e., entered the park from the west side), I think our whole trip would have been tainted.  I don't know if we would have even come back the next day.  (Okay, we totally would have because they have sequoias, and we wanted to see those, but otherwise, we totally wouldn't have come back.  Maybe.)  

It was sort of late in the day by the time we made it into the valley, and we needed to figure out where we were sleeping that night, so we didn't spend a lot of time looking around, but we knew we wanted to come back the next day.

Let me take a minute to say this:  Accomodations in Yosemite are no joke.  You had better have a plan if you are going there for a visit, at least during the peak season.  There was no lodging available in the park, AT ALL.  We ended up having to drive almost 30 miles west to the town of Mariposa (point C), and I think we literally found the last room that they had avaialable in town.  There were a few sketchy looking motels along the way that we didn't bother to check with, and they may have had some availability, but I'm guessing not.  The upside was, we really enjoyed Mariposa.  It's a cute little town, and we had some awesome pizza from the the Pizza Factory.  I appreciate a place that doesn't mess around with their toppings.  I ordered pepperoni, olives, and mushrooms, and you couldn't even see the pepperoni for all of the olives and mushrooms!

Tomorrow we'll go back into the park to check out the trees, and you know I love me some giant trees!  

   

(If you're like me, you'll go crazy combing through this post, trying to figure out what point D corresponds to.  It doesn't correspond to anything.  I just had to put that in there as a waypoint to get my route to come out correctly.  I apologize for any distress this might have caused!)

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