Yosemite

I got confused in the midst of CA highways and ended up taking an hour-long detour, but we arrived at Yosemite in time to get a campsite outside the valley since all the campsites inside the valley were full. Since it was in the evening, we didn't do much touring and went to the nearby park service station for an ice cream and some post cards.

As we set up camp, we noticed a fairly large tree limb that I assumed had been gathered for firewood, but the next morning as the sun was rising we began to hear loud thumps and sometimes crashes near our tent. Things were falling from the sky. The thumps got closer and were soon thumping and crashing our tent, and Amanda was sure that a dead tree was going to fall on us. We quickly got up to move the tent, and we soon realized we were only being pelted with sequoia cones which were falling from very high up. Evidently the tree decided it needed to shed most of its cones that particular morning, and we happened to be under it.



Since we had an early start we drove down into the valley. Yosemite is probably the second most popular national park, and the valley feels very touristy. There are lots of shops, lodges, and tourists. The scenery is truly magnificent, though, with sheer cliffs surrounding you on three sides. The popular Yosemite Falls was completely dry due to there being no snow left to melt, but we were able to see trickles from Bridalveil Falls, and when we drove up to Glacier Point we could see three other falls in the distance.



The rest of the day we spent traversing the higher regions of the park, picnicking, and admiring the force of nature on the granite mountaintops from vista points. Then it was off to Lake Tahoe. Anyone know how to get tree sap out of clothes?