Next we hit the road for Yosemite National Park. On the way we went from seeing 5 feet of snow on the side of the road to lots of orange groves and open fields.
After climbing several thousand feet we went through a loooong tunnel and came out to see Yosemite Valley out in the distance. We could see Yosemite falls, Half Dome and El Capitan. There was even a rainbow at the bottom of Yosemite Falls.
Then we headed down to do one of the trails to Bridalveil Falls but unlike trails in Zion, the trail was paved and only took 10 minutes to get to! It was beautiful but fuh-reezing so we ran out of there.
After exploring the park some more we decided to hike a trail that led to Mirror Lake. Mirror Lake was like nothing we had ever seen before. That’s because we never found it. :)
We walked along the Merced River (Pronounced Merce-ed.. we’re not sure why things are said so weird here) and spent most of the time looking for the perfect hiking stick to take home. It was really beautiful and I already started to get sad we weren’t going to be there for much longer. We planned a white water rafting for the next morning, which didn’t leave us much more time to explore Yosemite.
We were on the way out of the park when Larry decided to ask the ranger if there were any campsites still available. The man said yes! We paused for a second because we had intended to catch up on blogging and not smell anymore but decided we wouldn’t have a chance to do this again. (Not to mention it was $5/person!)
We turned around and flew back to the park as it was getting dark and we wouldn’t have much sunlight to set up the tent. The light was almost all gone when we got the campsite so we grabbed only the important things and ran to an open site. We thought it was weird that there was no one there but it was pick-your-own site and we didn’t have time to think about it. By the time we set up our tent it was pitch black and we hadn’t eaten anything all day so we grabbed a light and went to the lodge for dinner. The restaurant was really nice with a big fire in the middle and great circulation so no one would notice our smells (Just kidding…kinda).
When we got back to our campsite we realized we needed to do something with our food that was in the car because bears are a serious concern in Yosemite.
Unfortunately, the main locker had a lock on it and our campsite didn’t have one… weird. Getting worried that we were going to wake up to a destroyed car, we started asking the few people that were still around their campfires if they knew why our site didn’t have a locker. At closer inspection we found that our site was actually a monument for Columbia Rock, which broke some sort of barrier for hikers everywhere. We asked our neighbors if we could use their lockers and they told us we would soon be getting kicked out by rangers if we didn’t move to a designated campsite and invited us over to theirs. We ran to the car and grabbed everything that could be bear food (that includes toiletries, make-up and even chapstick!) and stored it in the locker. Phew! We’ve had really great luck with our neighbors this trip. We fell asleep looking up from our tent into the stars. (Still no shooting star!)
