Finne's Follies: Awesome Yosemite Valley

Lower Yosemite Valley (Half Dome in the distance)

Mark has been to Yosemite before, but this is my first time. Making this a two week stay was a very good decision because it's impossible to see very much of the park in just a few days.

We have decided on several day trips with the car while we're here. Our first trip was to Yosemite Valley, where the famous El Capitan and Half Dome rock faces can be seen. There is an interesting Welcome Center here where you can read all the fairy tales about how Yosemite valley was formed a gazillion years ago, when of course everything was meticulously recorded for posterity. I'm going with the Genesis account, which God himself provided to us, because He was actually there (Job 38). Looking at the topographical map of the area, it's easy to imagine the mountains being split apart in a great upheaval (the Great Flood, perhaps?) If it were possible to fold the mountains back up again, you can almost see Half Dome fitting up neatly against the rock face on the opposite side of the valley. But I digress.

The topographical map

There is also a nice general store with everything from memorabilia to groceries to double chocolate Haagen-dazs bars. I bought one of those (of course) and a jar of local blackberry jam. I've had to curtail my habit of purchasing a coffee mug commemorating the places we visit, mainly because I no longer have any space to store them. So instead, we buy things we can eat. And sometimes clothes. But mostly food.

Hetch Hetchy Reservoir

Our next day trip was to Hetch Hetchy (catchy, isn't it?) Reservoir. The scenery was amazing. I found myself singing that old chorus, "Our God is an Awesome God," for the rest of the day. Hetch Hetchy Road is sometimes shared with grazing cows, some of whom challenged our right to be there. But in the end, they decided they didn't want any trouble, and moved off to the side.

If only you could see their eyes...
daring me to take the road.
I did.
They moved.

Yes, that's smoke rising in the middle

And Saturday we made the very long and treacherous drive up the mountain to Glacier Point, which is more or less opposite of Half Dome. Had we thought more carefully about our timing, we would have waited until the not-weekend, as the area was packed with tourists. (Those darned tourists!) We crept along in a car queue for about half an hour just to get into the parking lot. Nevertheless it was worth the effort. This is one of the areas of the most recent fires in Yosemite. Parts of the forest are still smoldering, It was a little disconcerting, partly because of the smoldering trees, and partly because of the bareness of the hillside, which makes visible the height at which we were driving along on that narrow winding road.

The viewing area is the home of that infamous jutting rock that hangs out over the cliffs, upon which many people have stood to have their pictures taken, and from which many have fallen to their death because they were idiots. On that day, idiots abounded, sitting and standing on precipices for a picture. Fortunately, none (to my knowledge) lost their lives.

Glacier Point

Yosemite Valley and Hetch Hetchy were the shortest of our scheduled day trips. The Glacier Point. drive took us six hours round trip. We'll also be going to Tuolumne Meadows and the Mariposa Grove (giant redwoods), which are at opposite ends of the Park. Each of those drives is expected to take roughly about the same time.

The weather has been lovely so far. It got a bit hot the first two or three days, but since then it's been in the low 80's and breezy, and as soon as the sun goes down, it cools down right away.

Mark has solved one of our periodic power problems: the one where we can only get 30 amp campground sites. When we're in those low-amp sites, we can't use our basement air/heat and we have to run the fridge on propane to keep it at the proper temperature.

Typically, sites that have 30 amp plugs also have a plug for 15 or 20 amps on the power post. We've purchased a pigtail adapter that allows us to plug into two outlets-- two 30 amp outlets, if available, or a 30 and a 20, providing us plenty of power to run everything in our coach without tripping circuit breakers. In this park, we're borrowing the 30 amp outlet from the site next to us since its empty. It was a cheap fix that will open up our options moving forward.

That's it for now. Enjoy the pictures!