YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK

SATURDAY, 2nd JULY.

It is quite a distance from Lake Tahoe to Yosemite so we made an early start this morning, driving about halfway along the eastern shore of the lake and through  Cave Rock before turning inland, heading to the outskirts of Carson City, Nevada's capital city and turning southwards.  After about an hour or so of scenic driving through the Sierra Nevadas, we crossed the state line again and were back in California.  We stopped for a brief stroll along the main street of Bridgeport where the townspeople were preparing for the 4th of July celebrations, the buildings were festooned with American flags and bunting, a town bbq and dance were advertised as were a rodeo and parade.  Sadly, we were a couple of days too early, it looked like there was a lot of fun to be had.
We pressed on, stopping at the viewpoint overlooking Lake Mono and shortly after reached Lee Vining where we turned off the 395 onto Highway 120 which led us into Yosemite Park.  Driving to the park entrance, the rain started, was heavy for 10 to 15 minutes, then stopped and allowed the sun to come out for the remainder of the afternoon.  Yosemite is considered to be one of the crown jewels of the National Park system and attracts visitors from all over the world, including Down Underers!  Here there are deep, glacial valleys, expansive meadows, impressive Alpine scenery and ancient groves of sequoia trees.  There are several hiking trails throughout the park for the more energetic but the towering cliffs of granite, waterfalls, rivers and lakes can be viewed from the road at viewpoints along the way.  It is a wonderful park but once again, it was extremely busy and when we got caught in traffic tha went nowhere for quite a while, we turned around as soon as we could to drive the 100 miles or so to our overnight accommodation at Manteca, exhausted after what was a very long day.