Wednesday, June 27: Yosemite
What about dinner?
We’re at the “Bug Resort”. It reminds me a lot of Maho Bay. It is a youth hostel that expanded. Most of the people here are rather young and earthy crunchy.
This morning we had breakfast, carried our stuff up to our room (lots of stairs and walk ways), and got organized. We finally could take a shower and change into clean clothes.
It is now just after noon. We plan to head out to the park for a mellow day.
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Today was a bit of an adventure.
Being 25 miles outside of the park, along twisty mountain roads, and with the park being as large as it is, I figure that it is probably an hour or more driving from the Bug Resort to wherever we are going, and an equal drive back in the evening. That is rather a pain. I can see there is a definite advantage to staying in the park.
Yesterday we went in to Yosemite valley, looked around a bit, then had lunch. The squirrels are brazen. They will run around six inches from your feet. They are also quite plump.
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We visited the visitor’s center. We were looking for a short hike, and Mike picked out the hike to Sentinel Dome from near Glacier Point. We got back to the car, and then drove up to Glacier point, stopping at overlooks along the way. It was getting on towards late afternoon.
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Everything here takes a long time to get to. By the time we got to Glacier Point, it was about dinner time, and the valley below was dropping into shade. From Glacier Point, you can look almost straight down to the valley floor. Peering over the railing got my pulse up and essentially convinced me that climbing Half Dome was not for me.
Along the way we had a short slow-down where people (including us) stopped to take a picture of a coyote lounging on the side of the road.
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The sun was noticeably low in the sky when we started on the hike to Sentinel Dome. It is about a mile and some change and only about 300 feet to the top. With the sun being that low in the sky, the lighting was very nice.
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The sun went down when we were halfway back. Then we ran across several groups of deer, some not that far from us. They kept an eye on us, but they were not overly afraid.
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Driving back, at one point all three of us started smelling French Fries! It was a strong and distinct odor. It didn’t help that we were all pretty hungry. I was totally baffled as there were none in the car. So where was the smell coming from?
We finally decided that the car in front of us was probably burning bio-diesel, and that the smell was coming from it.
The big problem looming was dinner. Most places closed at 9 or earlier, and we didn’t get down to the valley until just after 9. Checking Amy’s guide, I found just one place, a pizza patio, which was open until 10. So we drove to Curry Village, found a place to park, and got to the pizza place by 9:30. Fortunately for us, it was in fact open until 10, so we got a pizza for dinner.
After eating it, we had to drive all the way through the valley and back out, so we actually got back to the bug after 11.