We woke up to another beautiful California day. The weather could not have been more perfect. We packed up the behemoth and headed to the main building to check out. I managed to get some photos, of course.
The previous day when we arrived, we had a bellman help with our bags. Well really he was showing us where the cottage was, but also helped put our bags on a trolley. I was asking him tons of questions about where to hike, what not to miss, etc. and somehow we got on the subject of rock climbing. He pointed over to this sheer wall of granite and said there would be people climbing all day. I don’t see anyone, but I am sure he was right.
By the way, this became a mission of mine, finding climbers. I mean, people come to Yosemite specifically to climb. Climbers should be everywhere, right? Yeah well I never saw anyone. I’ll have to zoom in on some photos and check again, but I never saw climbers.
Anyway. Oh yeah, the hotel had a pool which we did not use at all.
Here’s another example of how they hadn’t yet updated the signs in the hotel to reflect the new (old) name. And yes, you can rent bicycles here. We ended up doing that elsewhere, later in our stay in Yosemite.
We had to cross this little bridge to go between the cottage and the main building. There are these weird benches built into the sides of the bridge. We did see people sitting on them at one point, but they lean so far back it would be awkward to sit in them for very long unless you enjoy staring at the sky. And I am sure some people do enjoy that, but still these benches seemed like an unusual feature.
So after we loaded up the Flex we drove over to our next hotel, the Yosemite Valley Lodge. This was another time where we really should have got an earlier start on our day.
Yosemite Valley Lodge is kind of a central location in the valley. Lots of bus tours and hiking tours depart from there, which means a lot of people park there. So when we arrived we could not find parking. I drove around and around, from one lot to another, searching and searching. It took forever but I finally got a spot. Well, I wasn’t really sure it was a parking spot, and I was worried I would get towed (do they tow in Yosemite? I didn’t really want to find out the hard way).
We checked in and went up to our room. We had a huge room with a queen (?) bed, bunk bed, and sofa bed. The room was on the 2nd floor and there was no air conditioning. This did become a problem, though the room had like 4 fans that we were able to use to try to cool off. We just never managed to figure out how to get a good cross breeze going.
Anyway, here is our ginormous room!
One of the many fans in the closet.
More fans in the other closet.
Lotion and soap dispensers near the sink.
I think I remember the floor getting really wet near the shower. It was in this little room with poor ventilation, and that curtain somehow didn’t really prevent the water from getting all over the place..
The toilet was in its own room. There was one light switch that controlled the light in the toilet room and the shower room. So if someone was taking a shower and you went to use the toilet and you turned off the light when you were done, the other person would be showering in the dark.
Outside the hotel.
This hotel also had a pool, and I had thought it would be nice to hang out by the pool after hiking, relaxing and maybe cooling off a bit.
However, that never happened because the pool was closed the entire week that we were there. Why was it closed? There were several different stories. Once we heard there weren’t enough lifeguards. Then we heard there were mechanical issues. It was really disappointing because that pool looked so inviting.
I wasn’t going to waste any time hanging around. We had a hike planned. So we made lunch, packed our bags, and waited for the shuttle. I think this was the day we waited forever for the shuttle.
Apparently we saw a deer.
Once we got to our destination we went to this nature center that was nearby. They had some interesting exhibits about the area. We kept seeing these blue birds everywhere, and these seem to be my best attempts at photographing one of them.
down to a stream to have lunch.
It was really pretty. Some people came down and decided to take off their shoes and go wade through the water. I think they went all the way over to the waterfall, which was stupid. It wouldn’t be the last of the stupid things we saw in Yosemite, though.
This tree had an elaborate root system above ground. DD sat and had lunch in the roots.
So, we were supposed to be hiking to a waterfall. There were actually 2 waterfalls. One that we would arrive at first, and then another that was supposed to be much better. The hike to the first was short, about a mile, which sounded easy. Well it was anything but easy for this flat lander. Pretty much the entire hike was uphill. I felt like I was so out of shape, it was ridiculous. So I just used my resting time as an excuse to take lots of photos. I had new hiking poles, though, which helped a lot.
If you have read my Alaska report, you might remember “Branchy” who became the star of a fictitious TV show my kids invented while we were hiking in Stanley Park. This must be Branchy’s Californian cousin.
While the hike was torture, the scenery was amazing.
I think this was at or near the first waterfall. My photos are all out of order so I am not 100% certain.
These photos are from my camera and they turned out awful. I have no idea what I did. I must have accidentally changed the settings because all of the photos are faded and weird. So disappointing.
The photos from my phone are much better, in my opinion.
We decided not to go to the second waterfall. It was more uphill hiking and none of us wanted to go.
The thing about hiking up a mile is that then you have to hike down a mile. I was glad to have the poles, but it was still a steep descent. It doesn’t look like it, because I took photos of the flat parts. But trust me it was not that fun. The scenery was still great though.
Once we got down we went to wait for the shuttle. I have no idea what was going on but we waited FOREVER for the stupid shuttle. Then one came but only took half the people who were waiting. It felt like we were waiting for hours.
Once we finally got back to the lodge we were tired and hungry, so we showered and went to the food court for dinner.
The food court has these kiosks where you order and pay for your food. The options come up on a screen and you choose what you want and pay with a credit card. Then you get the receipt and go pick up your food.
They had the kind of food you’d expect, like pizza, burgers, etc. Then they had some other options like stir fry, or meatloaf, etc. They said you couldn’t customize pizza, and refused when I asked again, but I saw them customize it for someone.
The lodge had a store with some groceries, necessities, and souvenirs.
We went back to the room and hung out until we were ready to sleep. The room really heated up during the day and since all of the windows faced one direction it was very difficult to get fresh, cool air in the room. I tried several different positions for the fans but nothing really seemed to work. By about 6am the room had usually cooled off significantly, but it would heat back up again every day.
At some point that evening my foot was in extreme pain. I couldn’t bear weight on it at all. It was the top of my foot, which was weird. I hadn’t injured it or anything but it was extremely painful. We didn’t have anything planned for the following day so I figured we would rest, and possibly go visit the medical clinic if needed.
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