Yosemite National Park Day 1

Thursday we made the drive to Yosemite Lakes a Thousand Trails rv park. We are only 5 miles from the Yosemite National Park gate and about 30 minutes from the Yosemite Valley. The drive was good except for the last 8 miles. We had a harrowing drive up around a very curvy narrow mountain road. I'm not sure which is worse, Jim driving the rig around it or me following watching how close the rig gets to the edge.

We did make it, checked in, chose our site and set up. We wanted to get in and set up before the influx of people coming in Friday for Memorial Day.

We knew we would probably not have cell phone coverage, but we also do not have wifi. The park wifi here is painfully slow, I cannot download pictures, so no telling when I can finally post my blogs.

We woke up Friday morning to a temperature of 39 degrees. It was kind of funny, I was watching a commercial about a Memorial Day sale with girls in bikinis and I had the fireplace on and was covered with a blanket. It warmed up quickly, but the highs will be in the 70's. Nice!

Since we had never been to Yosemite, we made an exploratory visit. We knew it would probably be crowded, but we just wanted to see how things were set up and get some maps and other information.

There were three cars in front of us at the gate, so we got in pretty quickly.

We drove to Yosemite Valley and through three tunnels.

The first thing we saw was Bridal Veil Fall. We were able to snag a parking place to walk up to the vista. Unfortunately, the sun was right in the middle and you couldn't see anything but spray. The picture was better from the parking lot.


Next, we passed by El Capitan.


We stopped at this luscious green meadow that had a boardwalk through it.


We spied this waterfall which turned out to be the Upper Yosemite Falls. Just gorgeous!


We went to the visitors center to see the film about the park and pick up some maps. The man checking us out asked how long we were staying. We told him two weeks and he said we'd be able to see a lot. He then told us the story of an early park visitor who asked someone if he only had an hour and a half to see the park, what should he see. He was told go out to the park, find a place to sit, look around, then cry. ;)

Luckily, we have more time to discover the beauty of this park. We're going to just relax the next few days and let the crowds have the park this weekend, then we'll continue our exploring on Tuesday.

Location:Yosemite National Park