Yosemite National Park

Our second stop in California - Yosemite!! It was so beautiful driving up. We went straight to Tamerack Flat Campground, about a half hour drive from Yosemite Valley. As we pulled up to the campground entrance, the Camp Full sign was out and a ranger guarded the gate, which was closed...sort of odd. Mim drove up to talk to the ranger and the ranger informed him that there was a bus stuck in the road, but there were still some camp sites available. He thought that we could make it around the bus on our bikes so he let us through the gate. When we reached the bus about 2 miles down the road, the ranger was not happy with us. "who let you guys through here?" she proded. Mim told her that we were already down there and the ranger said we could get around. She was very reluctant to let us try but ended up allowing us to look and see if we could get around. This gigantic tour bus was stuck in the middle of a severe switchback on the narrow, windy, unpaved road. He was blocking the entire road with the exeption of a tiny section of soft, deep dirt on the edge of the cliff on the outside of the bus. People crowded on the road anxious to get around the bus and go for their hikes or whatnot. And the people from the bus layed on the road, relaxing while they waited for the tow truck to save them. Mim drove his bike on over and surveyed the small chance of us getting aroun dthe bus...he waved me on over. "We got this", he says, "you just get on the side of the bike and make sure I dont fall." Gee, Ok, no problem. I might die at the bottom of the cliff with a 500 pund bike ontop of me, but why not give it a shot right? Making sure he didnt fall didn't work, so I just pushed from behind to help him get over the soft dirt and pine needles. And sure enough, we made it. Mim drove both bikes through whi;le I pushed from behind. The tour bus driver just shook his head at us in agitation. And we got the heck out of there before the feisty ranger could realize what we'd done.Silly bus driver, those roads are for motorcycles! Good thing for that tour bus though, We got a great spot at that campground with plenty to choose from. Might have been full if the road were open.

That first night, I layed awake listening to the gun shots...lots of bears out there. I'm happy the rangers were up all night protecting the bears. Apparently they shoot them with rubber bullets to scare them off and keep them wild. First time I had heard of that. We spent 3 nights at this camp spot, the longest we've stayed anywhere so far! We hiked the Upper Falls Trail to the top of the highest falls in Yosemite.

And by the end, we were so beat...

Yeah, that wasn't really a hike, we climbed that mountain straight to the top, all up hill, all switchbacks. It was a pretty fierce adventure. Suprisingly, we saw a few guys on horseback coming down those switchbacks, stumbling over the slippery rocks the whole way.

 I almost didn't make it. We ran out of water 3/4 of the way up and I just couldn't keep up with Mim's pace so I sat and waited for him to go up and back down...but I couldn't handle the defeat...I sarted getting passed by old people and I felt pretty pathetic. So I kept going inly to find Mim had already gone all the way up and back down again...I really didn't want to leave without seeing the top, I had been looking foward to this hike a lot. So we both went up, Mim for the second time! I am SO glad I made it, so worth it in the end...

We swam in the clear, beautiful pools at the top, that water was so amazing.

Coming down the mountain

The famous Half Dome

The next day, we went out for a less streinuous hike, to one of the Giant Sequoia Groves.

This drive-through Sequoia has attracted tourists for many years

We found a fallen Sequoia which we crawled through, of course!

 The Sequoias were huge and very cool to see. Although I wouldn't recommend any hike the day after climbing Upper Falls. Walking the paved trail a mile each way was so difficult it was pathetic. But we had to see those awesome trees! Here is the little friend who creeped around our tent our last night in Yosemite.

Can you guess what she was doing there?? It was kinda gross.