As always, the pictures can be viewed here.

Today was uneventful as this was the last day. The drive in was as usual, passing people who didn’t know how to drive in their rental cars. Today, there was an unusual number of people urinating on the side of the road and even in the park boundaries! On the way in, we stopped at many places to look at the Merced River. I took some great shots of the smallest waterfall in the park, which you can see at the album.

On the shuttle to the visitor’s center, I found a cell phone in the bus. It was Cingular, and for some reason, had full signal. The only people I saw on cell phones had Verizon. I returned it at the visitor’s center. There was a short video showing titled the “Spirit of Yosemite”. It was about 20 minutes long, and explained how the park became and some history of the natives. I recommend anybody that goes to Yosemite to watch it.

The way out was just like the way in, passing people who didn’t know how to go the speed limit and use the turnouts. The way in and out on Highway 140 is a narrow and windy two lane road with passing zones and turnouts in some places. Apparently flashing your headlights doesn’t mean a thing to the one car that is slowing down a dozen others.

I hope to go back to Yosemite and do some camping that couldn’t be done because all the campgrounds in the valley were booked since a few months ago. Overall, it was a great trip!

The day started out uneventful, until we got to right before the bridge that was taken out by a massive rockslide. There was this one RV that does NOT know how to use a turnout. There were probably a dozen cars behind him on a two lane road, mind you. A SUNTREK van passed the four cars behind the RV, and I started to pass people, one by one. We get to the bridge, and everybody’s caught up with everybody else. Everybody crosses the bridge, and we start to make our way to El Portal. We passed about 6 turnouts, and this RV would not use them! Finally, we get to El Portal (where they have gas for $3.97 and up), with the entire caravan going less than 40 miles per hour. He FINALLY pulls over, and when I pass him, I lay on the horn, so do a few other people behind us.

Get to the park at about 9:30AM and then realize that the shuttles are only running every 30-minutes this early in the day. We walk to the Yosemite Lodge from the Day Use Parking Lot, which takes 25 minutes, board the open-air tram for the Valley Floor Tour, and we were on our way.

The Valley Floor Tour is actually pretty good for the two hours and $22 per adult. The tour guide spoke about her experiences about bears, and how one bear broke into her house, ate all the food in her trash cans, and two gallons of gasoline.

After the tour, it was lunch time, and after that, it was time for the Glacier Point bus tour. The drive up there took a bit more than an hour. When we got there, the views were spectacular! After an hour of coming down the mountain, the tourists saw some deer on the side of the road, and it was time to go home.

Nothing much happened on the way back to the hotel. By the way, they have free wireless internet here at the Best Western in Mariposa.

We started out today at 8AM. The drive went off without a hitch up until Merced. We stopped at Sonic to get some lunch. I had never been to a Sonic “America’s Drive Thru” and ordered a burger, some fries, and an Famous orange slush. Miles outside of Merced, we were on Highway 140, the most straight part and a squirrel darted out in front of the car. We *almost* destroyed it!

We arrived at the motel at about 1PM. The front desk lady let us check in early, which was good, because we had to drop off all of our food so that the bears wouldn’t get to it.

After getting into Yosemite, we parked and took a few of the free shuttles to get around to the different locales. Booked two open-air tram tours, the Valley Floor, and Glacier Point tour. After booking the tours, we went to the gift shops, picked up some stuff, and rode the shuttle in a big circle, checking out the camping areas near Mirror Lake.

On the way out, 2.5 miles away from the entrance, there was a blue Ford truck going in the opposite direction (into the park). We were happily going along around 40 miles per hour and there was this black bear that suddenly darted out in the middle or the road. The truck clipped the back half of the bear while it was running in front of my from my left to right. This clipping of the bear took out its hind legs sending it sliding across my lane. I braked hard, and didn’t hit it. If I didn’t slow, I would have probably run over it. I slowed to a stop and looked back. The bear was on the side of the road just sitting there for a few seconds. Then it started moving so we left because it was a bear, and it was just hit by a car. At the entrance to Yosemite, I told the ranger on duty, and they said they would send somebody to check it out. (You’re supposed to report every bear you see).

So, that was about it for day one.

You can view pictures of the day here.

Sneak preview for day 2: Valley Floor Tour, lunch, Glacier Point Tour. That should last about the whole day.