Travels with Kenny

Wednesday, August 4, 2010. Oakdale, Calif.

We spent Tuesday and Wednesday in Yosemite. Tuesday we were in the Valley area and saw El Capitan, Half-dome, Bridal Veil Falls, etc. Spectacular views! Very crowded in this area, but not so bad that you couldn't park, shop, etc. The weather has been perfect, not a cloud in the sky. But hot, around 98 degrees. It's a little cool in the shade, but the sun is fierce.

Speaking of crowds: Yosemite is huge, and the big attractions like El Capitan are far into the park. If you're staying in an affordable motel outside of the park, you have a pretty long drive to get to the entrance (on difficult, winding roads) and then an equally long and winding road to get to the attractions. The result is that everybody arrives at about the same time: 11-12. And because the exit takes just as long, everybody leaves at the same time. So traffic by the Valley visitor's area is awful. Hey!, but you might see a bear. (We didn't).

Serry likes Bed and Breakfasts (although she rarely eats the breakfast), so Tuesday night we stayed at Nature's Inn in Ahwahnee (an Indian word for "middle of nowhere"). We were in a cabin-like room, so small the bathtub was a few feet from the bed. We called for this place early in the morning, so the owners had plenty of time to prepare for us. Nevertheless, there was almost no toilet paper, there was no sugar for the tea and coffee in the room, and although a sign invited us to enjoy the complimentary drinks and cookies, there were none. But the host and hostess were very nice, and the other stuff was no big deal. All part of our adventure

Wednesday, Serry and I took a 5-mile hike around the Hetch Hetchy (Indian for edible grass) reservoir to a waterfall. Pretty neat, but also very hot and pretty strenuous. But beautiful, like everything else here.

Tomorrow we'll give the hiking boots a rest and head for Sacramento.