Tom's National Park Adventure

I was able to sleep late this morning. That is a very good thing! I got my camp all packed up and ate a little breakfast. Then I drove to the Fresno airport and checked how and where I was going to pick up Jeff Primm. I got that all figured out and went to the Cell Phone lot and waited to hear from Jeff. Jeff’s plane was a little early so I picked him up and off we went. It took us a little over two hours to get to the park. Once we were in the park, it took us another 45 minutes to get to the campground. We got to the campground and set up camp.

True to form we drove to the nearest Visitors center. The amount of people here is scary. And the fact that the Rangers were so glad the the number of visitors had gone down lately due to schools opening back up is also very telling too! We came up with a tentative plan of action for the next few days and then went and found a Deli and had some lunch.

The sandwiches we had weren’t too bad. When you buy things in the National Parks you get used to paying a lot more than you usually would if you weren’t in the park. However we ran into something today that was ….just shocking! Bottled water was $3.50 a bottle. Gatorade was $3.59. Budweiser was $1.29 for a 16 oz bottle! Needless to say… we opted for the beer!

This park is huge. I believe the informational ranger told us the entire park is around 1200 square miles! From the gate we entered to get into the park to our campground it was over 35 miles! They get over 5 million visitors per year here. It has been over 40 years since I was last in this park. It is every bit as beautiful as I remembered it. There is evidence of wildfires destroying forest land everywhere you drive it seems. The Yosemite Valley seems to have been spared from what I have tell.

Jeff and I decided to drive around a bit and see if we could get some pictures. I think you will recognize some of these

In the Tunnel Viewpoint shot you can see the following. El Capitan is on the left, Half Dome is in the middle and just below and to the right Bridalveil Falls can be seen. The next picture is of an informational sign near where my picture was taken. It points out other landmarks in the picture

It’s hard for me to believe that people have actually climbed El Capitan to the very top, without using safety lines! I can’t hardly get close enough to take the picture much less climb something like that! OK that’s enough for today……

More tomorrow.