This morning we left our little private campsite in the
middle of Jessie’s Grove Winery after a very quiet and relaxing evening. It was
so enjoyable being treated like “old friends” instead of strangers at the
winery. It was a great experience that we look forward to repeating in other
places. The drive started out as a gentle trip down to Stockton and then east.
Slowly the terrain changed from flat to rolling hills. We hit a beautiful
little town with a supermarket, inexpensive (for California) fuel and a
beautiful lake. From there, the terrain began to change. We started climbing
and then climbing more and then it was “intense.” When I saw the sign stating
to turn the air conditioning off for the next 5 miles, I knew that we were in
for it! The road wound and climbed and wound around some more. Luckily, there
were two “commercial” vehicles in front of us that were not real fast. We
stayed behind them so that any complaints from drivers behind us were aimed at
those two trucks instead of us for holding them up. Barbara was extremely happy
that she hadn’t insisted on taking the first leg of the journey today. We
eventually made it to the entrance of Yosemite National Park to a welcome sign
stating “campgrounds full.” We flashed our Senior Pass to “avoid” the $20 fee
and pulled over to the campground reservation kiosk. We were told that the
waiting list was long, but we could easily get a site in the Stanislaus
National Forest which was only 6 miles outside the park. We turned around,
drove the 6 miles and arrived to another campground full sign. Luckily, this
sign was just left over from the night before and were able to slip into a
beautiful sight just above the river. We had a quick lunch and then drove 1-1/2
hours to Yosemite Village. We parked, went to the visitor center, picked up and
mailed a postcard to the boys and then saw the park movie. After that, we took
the park bus to Ahwahnee Hotel and walked around to check it out. It was
beautiful with a fireplace like that in the Grove Park Inn. Barbara was able to
find a neat little creamer that she purchased to add to her collection. We took
the bus back, spent a long time trying to find our car and then drove the 1-1/2
hours back to our camper. We reheated dinner leftovers from last night, worked
on laying out the next part of the journey and then cleaned up the dishes. (We
did get to knock off a bottle of wine too) Tomorrow, we will spend in the Park
and haven’t decided on whether to drive to the valley or not. As we’ve said
before, we are making this trip as we go along!
No comments:
Post a Comment