Yosemite - The Most Popular Park

Saturday, June 11th - Yosemite National Park – South to East Entrance, California - Day 120

After a late driving night and no need to get anywhere specific until 4pm, we leisurely got ready and packed up. We decided to try to get into the park but were unsuccessful. A laundromat fifteen minutes away let us get to the bottom of our pile of laundry. Things went long and we had to race to get into the park and to the visitor centre before it closed. We had to forget about hooking up the trailer on our way by. Our race was won, we had two minutes in the visitor centre to get badges, stamps, advice, and booklets. While the girls and John hung out at the visitor centre and nearby lodge, I drove back to pick up the trailer.

When I picked up everyone, they looked cleaner for some reason but regardless, onwards we went. Yosemite National Park is known for the Yosemite Valley, a beautiful river valley nestled in between high cliffs of granite that are a favourite of climbers from the world over. We had an hour of driving through forested mountains to get to the valley. The valley is framed by several famous rock faces: El Capitan, Sentinel Rock and Half Dome that are frequented by climbers.

There is a big loop road through Yosemite Valley. We drove along casually stopping at pull offs to take pictures of the river and meadows framed by cliffs on all sides. There was a great deal of excitement, with vehicles stopped on the road, to see a pair of brown black bears (yes, black bears can be brown).

To be continued...

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