Yosemite National Park

USA

October 2007
2 days

13th to 15th October 2006

Sarah Says:

So we arrive in San Fransisco airport - what´s next??

Being the busy bees that we are we have booked a car from the airport and will be driving the 6-7 hours to Yosemite the following morning. Whoever said travelling wasn´t hard work eh?

So we pick up our car - a gold Dodge Stratus and begin the drive to Sabrina and Martins. Getting there was a little hair-raising with me (Sarah) driving on a 8 lane freeway in the dark with no real idea of the laws of the road.

We arrived at Sabrina and Martins, mercifully found a convenient parking space and frantically sorted our washing for the following morning.

So next day it´s up at 6 (as we had to move the car) and loaded up with snacks for the road trip, come on you know us well by now.

Taking turns in driving, the journey was long, very long passing farms, towns and some futuristic looking wind farms. Following the directions printed from the internet we drove round in circles and tried to go over a mountain via a gravel path suitable only for the sturdiest vehicles. The scenery was beautiful though with giant trees and pine cones bigger than Jons head. After much confusion a kindly women helped us find our way to our luxury hotel south of the park and approximately 9 hours after we left San Fransisco we arrived at Tanaya Lodge. Oh and by the way for all you arachnaphobes out there we saw a TARANTULA crossing the road on the mountain path - yes we were brave, however it was from the safety of our car!

Late dinner at the lodge, as an early start the next day to get to the park.

1st full day in Yosemite and we drove around the park taking in the natural wonders of California. The scenery was great with the Half Dome and El Capitan mountains in the background.

But we were itching to see the giant Sequoia redwoods upclose and personal.

Going back to our hotel we decided to chill and with a sign warning about the altitude we went for a quick swim and workout before dinner and bed.

2nd day and we were up even earlier to drive once again to the park and hike to see the Giant Redwood trees. These trees are absolutely enormous, with branches reaching up to the skies like arms and trunks so thick you couldn´t reach around them. The biggest tree of all is the Grizzly Giant which has branches bigger than the trunks of any other tree in the park - this guy is massive! he´s 1/2 the height of Canary Warf!! Imagine that Simon (Appleton) when you look out of your window!!

We met an interesting man who was giving a tour to his friends. He told us the history of the site and kindly took a brill photo of us by getting on the floor giving an upward shot! Thank you kind stranger as this is one of my favourite pictures of all. Once we hiked back it was a long 8 hour drive back to Sabrina and Martins with great memories to share.

That night it was back to San Fransisco to play BUZZ a highly addictive XBox quiz game that Martin is the undisputed champion of. Apart from the fact that I (Sarah) beat him.....ha ha ha