After Malibu we headed towards Yosemite National Park (YNP)! Jeff and Jamey took the truck/trailer on a safer travel route while Chandra, myself, and the 3 kidlets took a more scenic route. Somehow our scenic route ended up taking almost 2 hours longer, but we won't digress!
Our spot to stay was at The Lakes RV Park & Golf Resort in Chowchilla, CA. Don't ask me anything about Chowchilla. All I know is that it had a LOT of orchards in the surrounding farmlands and some not-so-decent Mexican food. (Can you sense a theme? Mexican food in CA is NOT what we love...so when we find a decent spot, we have to remember it somehow!) My review of the RV park is in the above link.
Day 5--Yosemite
It was about a 2 hour drive to YNP from our RV park, so we were up and out early. It was a foggy morning but ended up being a beautiful drive after the fog burned off. All of us loved seeing the winding river along the road up to YNP--scenery us Houstonians don't see unless we travel!
This sign was one of the only ones that we got today. We all wanted the typical "National Park Entrance Sign Picture" but we saw 0 -- yes, 0-- official signs for YNP. There were a few teeny ones, but not the big brown one we were all looking for. Disappointment for a moment. Disappointment went away after we saw the beauty of the park!
Our first "waterfall stop" landed us at this great little spot for the boys to run around, skip rocks, etc. Much needed after a long drive!
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| We hiked to the bottom of another waterfall, but hiking to one of these is a goal when the boys get older! |
We stopped a few times for some pictures/exploring and ended up at a large parking lot that was near one of the trail heads. Near was the key word. After walking half a mile we got to the trail head. Lunch was a fun little spot near our parking lot and Jeff took the boys on a little jaunt before our big hike while Jamey let Ezra do a little running around of his own!
To say that this trail is steep is a tremendous understatement!!! The pictures I took to capture the steepness don't do it justice. There were times I thought that doing forward lunges might just be more appropriate--and I was definitely glad that I'd bought a knee brace for this trip! It became my best friend!
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| We did the trail to Vernal Falls |
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| Is my hiking stick too big?? |
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| Hello?? Anyone there?? |
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| Maybe this is a bear cave?? |
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| Seriously doesn't do it justice! This is looking down where we'd hiked! |
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| Boys were getting tired, but hanging in there! |
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| ROAR!!!! |
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| On the way to the falls |
On the way out we were able to see a bobcat up close--as it was enjoying a nice squirrel or something as a tasty treat! One small hike was NOT enough to quench our Yosemite thirst, so we plan on coming back in a year or two when the boys can hike more and maybe we can find an RV spot closer than 2 hours away!
Even though it was 3pm-ish when we got done with our hike, we didn't have time for another since sunset was around 4:45pm and we had a 2 hour drive. We said our goodbye to YNP with a trip to the park store and headed back. We'll be back again one day!
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| One of our last majestic views! |
YNP is beautiful in November and we were lucky to have great weather and a fun day!
Stay tuned for Day 6--driving from Chowchilla, CA to Petaluma, CA
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