Yosemite...everyone was there today!

Remember, you can click on the pictures to enlarge them!

So was there a thing on the national news that said "everyone MUST go to Yosemite today!"? We got up at 6 am, left at 7:30 and got to the park at 8:30. We decided it would be fun to hike the little trail to the bottom of El Capitan, the very famous spot in Yosemite that is this really, really big rock. We parked the car, ate some snacks, and hiked to the base of it which was only a couple of miles. We got to see a brown bear on the return walk which was really neat too. All lovely and wonderful. Then we thought, we'll go check out bridalveil falls. Suddenly, there were so many people you'd of thought the Pope himself was scheduled to perform the electric slide with a resurrected Elvis singing backup. There was no place to park at any point. Even the sides of the road were filled with parked cars. We sat in traffic and took photos from the car which was OK but not what I had imagined. Yosemite Valley is that - a valley surrounded by big cliff walls. Unlike Yellowstone, it seemed liked you were confined to a circular road about the size of a football field, not quite that small really but seemed like it! Even the valet parking guys were just waving people on at the famed Awahanee Hotel! So we left that madness at 12:30 and thought we would go to Mariposa Grove to see the giant redwood sequoias. Several miles later there was a sign that said no parking, must ride shuttle. (sigh) So we sucked it up, and parked the car along the side of the road and got the shuttle. We saw some really huge trees but it was nothing like the Redwood Forest in Eureka. So many foreign accents along the trail in Mariposa Grove! Crazy, crazy..... We finally headed back to the house and stopped for pizza at an Italian restaurant on the way. I cant' believe what a day we had! We hiked probably about 5 miles and I was glad to see the sights that made Yosemite famous. It was also great seeing the falls made bigger from the flooding going on now so I really can't complain! Just wish there had been a few thousand fewer people in Yosemite today!