A simply stunning day

We awoke to sunshine again and temperatures of 81F – a simply beautiful day, with such a blue sky. We drove into the park and as we were early managed to get a good spot for the car, close to the stop for the shuttle bus.

All around Yosemite there are free shuttle buses, which are so much easier to use than driving your own car around. We went first to the Yosemite View Lodge (the main hotel in the park) to book up the Valley Floor Tour – we booked and then had an hour to wait, so visited the gift shop (some excellent bits for scrapbooking were purchased!) and then had a cup of coffee, sitting in the sunshine. We then boarded the ‘truck’ for our two hour tour, which was worth every penny. The guide was extremely informative and the views we saw as we travelled around (and stopped in places) were simply stunning. I will now let the photos speak for themselves!

We arrived back at lunchtime and took the shuttle bus back to the car and ate our picnic lunch in the company of a squirrel! We didn’t feed it as there were signs everywhere asking you not to feed the wildlife!

We then went to the Valley Visitor Centre and looked around the museum and then watched the film on Yosemite and had a look at the Indian Cultural Exhibit area. This was followed by a cold drink in the cafe before we jumped back onto the bus to go to the Lower Yosemite Fall, which was on a one mile loop walk. It was very busy, but we still managed to see the stunning falls and take some photos. The Yosemite Falls are actually made up of three falls, Upper Yosemite Fall (1,430 feet), the middle cascades (675 feet), and Lower Yosemite Fall (320 feet).

It was then a short walk back to the Yosemite View Lodge where we had decided to have our evening meal. We ate in the Mountain Room Lounge and enjoyed a delicious chilli con carne with a cornbread muffin and a huge glass of Coke!

Feeling extremely full we plodded back to the shuttle bus and returned to collect our car, as the next place we wanted to visit was actually on our way out of the park. Having driven past this

twice (!) so that Hugh could get the photo (the first time there was a huge campervan parked in the way, so we had to go round a one way loop to get back again!) we then made our way to the carpark for the Bridalveil Fall (620 feet). This was also a short walk, but very steep! We huffed our way up to the viewing platform where we had a spectacular view of the fall and could feel the spray from it.

We then made our way back to our hotel for our final night there.