Yo yo yo Yosemite!

We'd made our peace with the fact that we wouldn't likely head to Yosemite due to the weather but then decided that we'd rather be in Yosemite, bad weather and all, rather than miss it altogether.

In the end, the weather turned out to be pretty nice - though the evenings certainly were cooler. Our decision as to whether we should stay for 2 nights or 3 was made for us when we arrived and were told that we were lucky to get a spot at all. Yosemite is big business - even in the early spring before a lot of the camp grounds and roads are even open yet. Based on the crowds we saw in the village, I can't even imagine how crowded it must get once school is out. During the high season, Yosemite gets an average of 70,000 visitors a day.

The park camp grounds are all still a little ways from the Valley itself, so once we were set up on Wednesday night, we opted to hang out at the camp ground - a walk through the trails led to a pretty little meadow...which led led to a pretty little black bear. After that, we called it a night and huddled up in the tent til morning when the sun crept out.

We spent Thursday exploring Yosemite Valley and village. My overall impression of Yosemite is that everything is larger than life - it is like you are seeing everything in extra high definition. The trees all seem taller and bigger, the waterfalls are fast and voluminous, the rock is monolithic. Our highlights were seeing the iconic climbing route El Capitan (which we walked right up to and even saw some climbers on!) as well as the waterfalls, which are extra big right now in early May. Yosemite Falls are the largest falls in the states, and 5th in the world - a pretty awe inspiring site. 

On Friday morning, we packed up and rolled out. Starting on Sunday, we have reservations to stay at a State Park near Sedona for 4 nights - we are looking forward to the change of pace after have a busy little stint on the road so far.