Returning to Civilization

The next day Casey and I headed into Yosemite valley. I have heard so many wonderful things about this park, I was wondering if it could possibly live up to the hype. Sure, the valley was filled with all manner of iconic landmarks, El Capitan, Brideveil and Yosemite falls, and Half-Dome, but those are all just big rock or water features, how amazing could they really be? The answer of course is really darn amazing!

Too cool for mountains.

Who am I kidding, this place is great!

The excitement started even before we had reached the heart of the valley. We were descending down the park road and I was still sleep deprived enough from the racing, flying, and days of adventure preceding this one that I was struggling to stay awake when Casey locked up the brakes on her little Aveo. A little brown bear was tearing down the mountainside and lumbered across the road about 4 feet in front of our car. It wasn't long after that we got out of the trees and had our first really good views of Yosemite valley. Let me tell you folks, it is every bit as stunning as people say!

Wow! Just Wow!

This park was a lot more busy than the other parks we went through. The weather was pretty dreary though, so once we got out hiking we didn't have a lot of company. I'm really glad I made the decision to pack the jacket I won at the Birkie Marathon last fall. It wasn't 100% waterproof, but it was pretty darn close, and there were plenty of rainy days to test it out.

Mountains are also big, much bigger than even very big trees

Casey enjoying some mountains

There are many amazing hikes around this park, with a lot of elevation change. I will have to make the trip back out when I have more time and fresh legs. Casey and I did a short hike to Brideveil falls on our way into the valley, and a few mile hike to Mirror lake and back. That hike had a pretty significant rain delay in the middle of it. I wasn't too happy about the rain and was hiding out under a tree when a few girls hiked by in shorts and T-shirts. They sounded super unhappy about the rain, and considering how cold I was in my pants and rain jacket I can't say I blame them. Mirror lake has a great view of half dome, and it was fun to see the clouds rolling through the valley.

Panorama of El Capitan and Yosemite Falls

Things were a bit soggy at Mirror Lake

We got back to the car, ate a quick lunch, and hiked over to the base of Yosemite falls. This waterfall drops over 2400 feet in a couple different stages. One nice part about all the rain we had on this trip is that the waterfalls we saw were flowing well and were quite impressive. Also, since this part of California is in a pretty severe drought right now I'm sure there were many people that were happy for the rain.

More fun with sign mimicry

This tree said the rock tasted good, so I had to try it for myself 

After being wet most of the day Casey and I were not super enthusiastic about setting up a tent in the rain, so we headed out once the sun started going down and set a course for San Francisco. We made it as far as Oakland before deciding it was time to be sleeping. Finding a hotel can be tricky without a smartphone or internet, and several of the first places we found were sold out. We finally found a rather sketchy looking place that had vacancy, but since we were only planning to sleep and hit the road we figured it would work. The beds were actually fairly comfortable, and there were no visible rodents or anything, so we got right to sleep.

My first impression of San Francisco is that I'm glad I don't work there. We crossed the bay bridge into the city and the traffic was crazy. I counted 15 lanes going through the toll booths, all of them moving at a snails pace. It would make for a no fun commute. As a tourist however it gave us plenty of time to see the city and the bay from on top of a pretty sweet looking bridge.

Glad this isn't my commute

When we got into the city our first stop was the Golden Gate Bridge. We walked along the waterfront and got pretty close to the bridge. It was cool to see in person, since I've seen so many pictures of it, and it has a pretty long and famous history.

We also saw some sea lions, so we walked out onto the pier to get a better look. They were cool to see, and it was fun trying to track them swimming around. We also got pretty close to a pelican, although not too close, because Casey warned me they can be mean. We were keeping track of bird species on the trip and ended up seeing 30 something different types. Without Casey along I probably could have identified about 10 of the 30.

We also saw a bunch of turtles out sunning themselves, using every bit of log space available out in the little pond they were in. We finally got in touch with my friend Sarah and made plans to meet her for supper, One really awesome thing about SF is that there is free Wireless internet pretty much everywhere, on the buses, in the parks, and just in general around the city. Kind of makes sense considering how much technological and software development is going on in the area. Part of me felt a bit left out not having a smart phone, but on the other hand part of me couldn't help but chuckle at all the people with selfie sticks using their phones to take pictures of absolutely everything. I like a good picture as much as the next guy, but I'm more of a point and shoot kind of person, not a lot of thought or effort goes into the photos I take, For the most part the experience is the more important part, the photos are just good for the occasional blog post.

We had a couple hours before going to meet Sarah, so we hopped a ride on one of the streetcars. There are some pretty steep hills in SF, but these street cars handled them no problemo.

We hopped off in Chinatown and did a bit of sightseeing. I looked around for any good souvenirs, but shopping isn't a talent of mine or Casey's, so we left empty handed. The most appealing thing to me was all the fresh produce. We hopped on a regular bus to get back to our car and headed across town to meet Sarah.

The plan was to get an early supper and rush down to San Jose to pick up Sharon and Chris from the airport, but Sharon was having some flight difficulties and wasn't sure if she would make her connection to arrive on time, so Chris just booked a Hotel near the airport so they could just shuttle over whenever they arrived. This turned out to be a good plan, because Casey and I got to spend a bit more time with Sarah that way, and stick around long enough to meet her husband Matt. Then we got stuck in a police checkpoint on the way out of SF, so we would have been pretty late if we had tried to make it down to pick them up at the airport. We got in a good nights sleep and hit the road the next morning South down the coast to Monterey.