After paying the fees the very friendly rangers passed us on through. We drove down the road a bit and stopped at one of the pull outs along the Dana Fork of the Tuolumne River.
I did not see any fish, and I looked!
We drove on quite a bit more and stopped at Tenaya Lake, where I did not take any pictures, I guess, but Matthew did. Check out his Picture Pages!
Next we drove on to Olmstead Point. This place is VERY popular, with people crawling all over the rocks to see the fabulous views!
After checking in at the Crane Flats campground we headed to Yosemite Valley. These two images were taken at a stop along Big Oak Flat Road on the approach to Yosemite Valley. My first view of the dramatic scenery of the valley!
So, driving around the valley.
Some more huge rocks. Ho Hum. Not even sure where I took this one. Maybe it was back on Tioga Road, I forget.
We FINALLY found a parking space, after two circuits of the valley, and got out. Because I just HAD to find a geocache for the day, and there was an easy puzzle nearby.
While we were walking around, a presumably Australian fellow asked me if I spoke English. He was looking for the "swinging bridge". I had no idea. He probably would have been better off if I HADN'T spoken English!
After all this Valley adventure we drove up to the Glacier Point view spot. It was a LONG drive, and I was VERY tired. I may have fallen asleep several times. When we FINALLY got there the parking situation was perfectly AWFUL, but Matt was very patient and found a space. We and the other zillion people (except the half-zillion women waiting to use the extremely smelly bathroom) hiked over to the view spot to see what's what. EVERYONE was shooting selfies. I was so turned off by the sight I vowed to never take another one, after I took a couple. This vow lasted almost twenty-four hours.
Some guy WAY past the guardrail taking a selfie.
So there is Half Dome. A place I thought I might go up someday, until I realized I have a fear of heights. Not t mention the hike is WAY out of my ability!
Vernal Falls. Several people have managed to get themselves washed over water falls, including Vernal.. It's a LONG way down.
Speaking of a LONG way down!! Yup, that is the Yosemite Valley floor down there.
I sure hope I don't drop the camera on a car in that parking lot down there!
HUGE traffic jam on the way out of Glacier Point. Turned out there was a bear. Everyone was gawking. I just took a shout out the window as we slowly drove passed.
Here is our campsite at Crane Flat Campground. We only got a reservation because they closed the campground to spray for plague fleas and had just opened it that very day...
Too bad they didn't spry for yellow jackets (or maybe hornets, I forget which), they were VERY interested in the hamburger poor Matt was cooking. I was very terrified, but they finally went away after it got very dark, and then Matt cooked and ate the meat they had been crawling all over. He was very hungry.
Matthew brought the big tent, but I brought mine because I had never used it since I bought it. So now I have. I did not sleep well, and had a reflux incident in the middle of the night. It's difficult to sleep sitting up in a tent, I found.
The flying pointy insects were back in the morning, looking for that meat, I guess. We decided to skip cooking breakfast and get out of there. I, of course, managed to trap one of the yellow flying insects in my tent as I was folding it up. I unzipped the door and maneuvered the little fellow out. He flew away with no further incidents.
Here ends Part 1.75!
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