Sunday, August 07, 2016

Riding the big yellow bus

The fantastic thing about the national parks we've visited is the fact that they're all so different, the landscapes change so much, yellow deserts sprinkled with the alien-looking joshua trees, to red gold canyons to green forest and waterfalls.

We arrived at our accommodation at the end of our 10 hour drive day, which culminated in us finally reaching the snow-capped peaks we had been creeping toward all day. Going over the mountains was a struggle for our little rental, at times I could have walked faster, but it was still light when we pulled into the drive way of the Yosemite Bug.

Yosemite Bug looked like a school camp, nestled amongst the trees with dorm rooms dotted about the place and a big cafe in the middle.

We weren't expecting much from the cafe but the food turned out to be some of the best on our entire trip. We had a perfectly done steak with a tasty blue cheese sauce and vegetables which hadn't had the crap boiled out of them.

Yosemite was our last big park, like Zion it was super busy, but again really well organised with shuttle buses and lots of good nearby hikes.

Our first day we hiked to Vernon and Nevada falls, it was hot and there were a lot of stairs so when the spray from the waterfalls rained over the path with was refreshing even if it did make the path slippery and boggy.








The next day we attempted the long, steep hike to Glacier Point we had been steadily climbing the switch-backs a couple of hours when we stopped to grab water from my bag. We realised we had underestimated our water consumption and the heat so would probably run out before we reached the top.

We walked a bit further until there was some shade and a nice view, then had some lunch and started back down again without reaching the top.









Our last day was a little easier, we hired a raft and floated lazily down the river, we stopped for a swim but despite the heat of the day the water was icy and too cold to swim. At the end of the trip we got a ride back in an old yellow school bus just like the ones you see on the telly.






Now back to the city life with our next stop San Fransisco.

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