Yosemite Day 1

This year for Steven's birthday I planned a trip to Yosemite. He took the Friday off and we made it a long weekend. The plan was to get up super early spend as much time in Yosemite as possible and then leave Yosemite late Sunday afternoon, just before it got dark. 

We stayed in Curry Village (technically Half Dome Village now due to some complete stupidity), which is what I would call halfway between camping and a hotel. We had a tiny little cabin with two double beds we pushed together to make a normal sized bed, and bathrooms just a short walk away.

Our first stop in the park was Tunnel View. The hiking site I was reading said if you don't have a picture of this people won't believe you went to Yosemite. So, just in case... It was a wonderful view, but a bit crowded. This picture also clearly shows the thunderstorms the weather people predicted... We packed warm clothes for the weather and we a bit concerned about how warm it was when we arrived. 

The next stop was just down the road a bit, Bridalveil Fall. It was very short and easy walk, paved the whole way. This made this hike very crowded too, but easy enough to get our picture taken. We quickly figured out that the nice fancy camera I borrowed from my mother was not going to work for waterfalls. In about 2 seconds the lense was covered in water. Our phones managed well enough. 

Next along the road was the Swinging Bridge and this lovely meadow. We almost missed this because the bridge area came up so fast with no parking. But just up the road was meadow parking, so we stopped there and walked back. I don't know the name of the meadow, but the waterfall is Upper Yosemite Falls. 

Along the walk back I saw a big black bird. Someone who was also photographing this bird said it was a raven. Some googling later confirmed that this person knew what they were talking about. They were a fairly common sight. 

This is the view from under the "Swinging Bridge". It doesn't swing anymore, because they replaced it with a non swinging bridge and didn't bother renaming it. This picture is interesting because one day later it would not be possible to have taken it. It rained so much overnight that the water level went up considerably.

Me poking the water.

Here is the first of many waterfall selfies. After taking this we went on a short walk through the meadow path, hoping to find a scenic route back to where we parked. It was mostly successful.

While waiting for our lunch buzzer from the Ahwahnee to buzz, we took a short walk to check out this little rock thing. (The hotel was renamed, but the buzzer was not.) Steven wanted me to take a picture of him behind it, but I took a bunch and google GIFed it for me. He also climbed up to the top of it. 

After lunch we still had some time before we could check into our room. So we went to check out the museums and science places. We ended up getting tickets to see a movie later that evening. The movie was visually stunning, but it was narrated by a climbing guy who sounded like he was stoned. 

Yarn Basket!

Apparently arrowheads are projectile points now...

Despite being in the car for 3 hours I managed to get 14466 steps. This wasn't even with dedicated hiking.