Yosemite National Park

Well here they are, here are some of the amazing scenic shots that I got this past Memorial Day weekend in Yosemite National Park. When I first uploaded all the pictures from my different cameras, I had a little over 300 {yikes!} I went through to delete the duplicates and pick the best ones. Now I am down to about 200 but that is still a lot. Let me tell you, it was a very tough choice to choose just a few favorites to show you because every single one was amazing and does not give the park as much credit as it deserves. This is definitely a must see place regardless if you feel you are an "outdoorsy person" or not, trust me!

Let's start from the beginning though, shall we? We arrived just south of the park entrance around 11 on Saturday morning, we took a quick stop at the place we were staying since it was on the way to ask a couple questions and use the restroom, then it was back in the car and off we go - or so we thought.. the road up to the park is a one lane either side windy road that as soon as we rounded a corner we immediately came to a complete stop and then sat in traffic for two hours, moving a couple inches every so often. That was kind of a bummed out way to start the trip but we were both so excited the time went by pretty quickly. Once we got into the park we took the first parking spot we could find and grabbed the bikes and off we went. We biked around the valley floor as the clouds and rain went on and off. We were determined not to let anything ruin our first day. The lower Yosemite falls was our first stop as we took the bikes all the way to the falls and locked them to a tree. It was so incredible to be standing so close to the waterfall and feel all the mist blowing over you from the falls. Then as the afternoon went on we decided to get back in the car and drive up to a couple of the famous look out spots; Tunnel View and Glacier Point. It seemed a lot of people had the same idea we did and it was pretty crowded but the low hanging clouds made for some interesting photos. On the way down from Glacier Point we even caught a glimpse of the sun setting! We arrived back at the house we were staying at to check in with the others, eat some dinner and get ready for tomorrow.

Sunday we had big plans, a long adventurous all day hike through Yosemite. That is the next post though, so stay tuned for that :] Monday morning we were dragging a little to get up and get going but it was beautiful perfect weather and we had reservations for horseback riding so we made it into the valley stables in good time. The horseback ride was a two hour ride through one of the trails to Mirror Lake. For me, it was a little disappointing and not quite what I expected but it was still fun  much and it was nice to take a ride and enjoy some more scenery before leaving. My horse's name was Vicki and she was sweet but a little stubborn in that she didn't like to wait or stop for the rest of the group she just wanted to keep going. Brett had a mule named Fred who was also great and didn't cause too much trouble. After the ride was over we went through a couple of shops in Curry Village and sat outside to have some {late} lunch. Then we had kind of a long trek back to the car to get out of Yosemite and make the long drove home.

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