Adventure! Day 21 - Driving to Yosemite
On the road again. Today’s drive is between 8 and 12 hours if all goes well. Tonight we sleep in Yosemite. Big news of today: gas is $6.35 per gallon. We had a fantastic day of travel. Miss America handled the extreme heat getting out of Nevada, and 5 hours into our trip it started getting cooler outside. We are at about 5000 feet of elevation now at our Yosemite airbnb and it’s 70 degrees out. There were long stretches of steep grades, and we stopped at the basin cafe to eat and let the van rest and cool down before the pass. I’m really happy to have the E450. It didn’t even get above 3000rpms on the drive.
We came into the park at sunset and it was spectacular. Two hours later, we were still driving in the park and in the dark (under the full moon). I’m glad, because what I could see looked terrifying. Big drop-offs and no railing. We drove Tioga pass to get here. Well, Damien drove. I helped by constantly reminding him of the suggested speed for the hairpin turns and playing the watermelon game on my phone to distract myself from the drop-offs and signs warning us not to run into any bears. The tunnels were really fun to drive through.
On the way here in Nevada, there were signs that said “open range” with a picture of a cow - and sure enough, the cows just wander about and have access to the road. I don’t know how they keep up with them without a fence. So watch out for cows in Nevada and watch out for bears in California. In Colorado the road signs had images of elk or moose to watch out for. Oh, and in Yosemite there were also signs that said to watch for falling rock. We had a long conversation about what exactly we were supposed to watch the falling rock do. Like if it falls, I guess it just hits you. Not really any other option. Swerve and you go off the cliff - maybe you live or maybe you die. In Florida we watch out for deer, and I’ve seen what happens when you hit one. It would be insane to hit a bear. Or a rock. Or a moose, for that matter.
Our place is perfect and has a washer and dryer. Yay. Liam’s shampoo exploded all over his bag and leaked out onto our bedrolls so we will be doing extra laundry. I’m pretty sure it was the elevation; we got up to 12000 feet today.
Well, it’s 1:30 in the morning now - 4:30 Florida time. Damien’s going to have some serious jet lag when he gets home in a few days. I’m tired from our time in Vegas and ready for sleep. We are going to try to do the Mariposa hike tomorrow and the glacier valley one. I’m pretty excited to see big old trees. But it’s hotter here than normal, so maybe not that excited. Low of 70 and high of 90, so not terrible. We left our gas cap in Nevada so we will be on the lookout for a replacement.
