Yosemite National Park

DAY 19:

On Thursday our destination was ‘Yosemite National Park’. We arrived at about 1 in the afternoon. It’s funny how the last park we visited is my favorite of all. As soon as we entered the park, there were several places we could pull over and take pictures of. The waterfalls were beautiful and the Merced River added a very nice touch to it.



At about 2 PM we went to see if there were any campsites available. Since it’s the summer season and almost weekend, we were out of luck. In ‘Curry Village’ we were able to put our name on a list of reservations. In case there were any cancellations, the people on the list would get the site. We were number 42 on the list.
They told us to come back at 3PM. We came back, but unfortunately when they reached number 29 on the list they were out of sites. :( Bummer.
We went to a payphone to call the nearest KOA campground in the area, which was 30 miles from the park. Unfortunately, they only had Thursday night available, instead of three nights, but we took it anyway.

DAY 20:

We went back to the park. First thing we did was go to the campground reservation office to put our names on the list for this afternoon. This day we were number 32 on the list. We went to see ‘Happy Isles’ and ‘Glacier Point’. From Glacier Point you could see this mountain called ‘Half Dome’. In this area we were able to see a bit of snow again.





Around 1.30PM we went back to the reservations office to be back on time for the 3 o’clock announcements. It takes about an hour to get from there to the Curry Village.
I guess luck was on our side today when the Park Ranger called out my name as the last person to get a site for this day. Woohoo.
We got a site at ‘Upper Pines’. When we went there the lady at the entrance warned us about the bears in the area. She told us to store food, water and all scented items in the provided bear lockers at all times. As soon as we had setup the tent and made our stir-fry dinner, we went to have a look at Yosemite Village. There was a nice big store, with ‘Yosemite goodies’ on one side and grocery items on the other. Lovely shop.
As soon as it got dark, we headed back and went into the tent. I was kind of scared sitting out in the open, darkness all around, knowing there are black bears and mountain lions around.

DAY 21:

This day I went to the reservations office again, but this time at 8 in the morning. Now I was number 15 on the list, which gave me the idea we would again have a site for tonight. Yay! :)
We took our bathers and a towell, as we headed to the Mirror Lake trail. Thinking we could have a swim in it or something. As we went to this trail, we came across a Mountain Lion warning sign. It had a warning about not to hike alone, or to jog. Yikes. About halfway down this trail, we were in between some giant rocks and the smell of cat urine was very pungent. At this point I thought we’d better get a move on. :)
When we got to the lake, and took our shoes off, people warned us about the strong current in the lake/river. I put both my feet in the lake and they nearly froze instantly. Ouch! This meant no swimming. We wanted to cross the lake, it was not deep at all, but because it was sooooo cold I couldn’t do it. This was melted ice coming from the mountains, so you can imagine just how cold it was at 9 in the morning.
Shortly after, we decided to take the same trail back and go back to the car. We drove around a bit more, took some more pictures and went back to the reservation office.



We were lucky again! :) When I got in line with my number, there were several people asking if anyone wanted to share their site. So was this guy called Peter. We agreed on sharing a site with him, it would save us half the night’s campsite fee and he seemed like a nice guy.
This time we picked a site in North Pines, near the river. When I pulled up to the campsite, this lady told me to be reaaaaaaal careful tonight, because rangers had seen two momma bears with her cubs at the campsite itself. When we were setting up the tent, Peter came with 4 beers ‘imported Holland’. (I had told him I was from Holland and was going back on Monday). The beer was called ‘3 Horses’ from Breda. I had never heard of it. After this we went to Yosemite Village again to get the things we needed to make dinner. Believe it or not, this 2.5 mile drive took us 1.5 hours. Apparently everybody was trying to get out of the park which caused a major traffic jam. I bought a fridge magnet of the Yosemite Falls to remember the park when I get back home.  We bought some chicken and made another stir-fry this night.
We wanted to see some more things before it got dark and walked down this path next to the river. It lead us to some stables with a lot of horses. There was this one horse standing by the fence and we decided to feed it with the things we found in the area. We petted it for a while and then walked back to our site. Our last night at Yosemite. :(

DAY 22:

This morning we packed everything and left the park at around 9AM. After living out of the trunk of a car for three weeks, it’s getting kind of difficult trying to fit everything in bags and sorting the dirty things from the clean things. Since the park itself does not have any gasstations, we had to exit the park from Highway 140 which leads to a town called El Portal. I was getting kind of nervous at this point, because there was not much left and the red light on my dashboard had been flashing for a while already. We made it to the gasstation and I was really relieved. They asked ridiculous prices for the gas, but when you need it real bad, you pay for it. Hah.
Believe it or not, around 10.30 we pulled over to a Burger King to have breakfast (never thought I’d say that!).
About 4 hours later we arrived at the Days Inn in Milbrae, which is a hotel/motel supposedly about 2 miles from the airport.

I’m sad this is the last day of my holiday, I’ve had a great time and will surely come back one day.
My flight leaves at noon tomorrow, I’ll be arriving back in Amsterdam on Tuesday.