San Francisco and Yosemite!

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We said goodbye to the last bit of warmth for a while in Vegas and flew to San Francisco! Where it has been freezing! Especially as we've been used to hot weather! ... So our first day was spent shopping for jumpers etc! Our hostel is in a really good location - close to Union Square where all the shops are, and its easy to get a bus / tram to the waterfront, which is what we did on our second day here. We visited Fisherman's Wharf, wandered around Pier 39 and stood watching the Sealions for ages! They're so funny - constantly fighting over a bit of space on the floating boards! And they smell really badly of fish! We took a boat trip around the harbour, under the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz.

We went to Yosemite National Park for the weekend - which really is amazing! V had been before about 7 years ago, but in the Summer when the waterfalls were dry - it was a very different story this time! Some areas were still blocked off due to snow and the waterfalls were huge!

Our first hike was on snow using snow shoes - which were great fun! It was freezing! We had to wear pretty much all of our clothes at once!! The snowy hike took us down into the forest to see the Giant Sequoia trees, which really are GIANT! Our guide then drove us to where we were going to have lunch, on the way we stopped at the very popular Tunnel view point, looking down over Yosemite Valley, Half Dome and El Capitan - we then drove a little further and walked up to the top of a track where we sat on the sloping rock face with a fantastic view of Yosemite Valley! There was a huge 'eratic boulder' just sitting on the sloping rock face - it looked like it could roll off at any second! After lunch we drove down into the valley to get a closer view of Bridalveil Falls and El Capitan. Our next stop was Yosemite Falls - which is huge! Apparently the biggest in north america! We were absolutely knackered after our first day in Yosemite, but fortunately our hostel had a bar! The following day was a little more relaxed - we went on a more gentle hike along by the river to see all the spring plants and flowers, before heading back to San Francisco.

We had 2 more days in San Fran, so we did a bit more shopping (mostly window!) and on our last day decided to go over the Golden Gate Bridge having already been under it on a boat. So we jumped on a bus heading in that direction and then walked half a mile to the middle of the bridge - it was absolutely freezing and blowing a gale! Good to get a different perspective of the bridge - even if the view was through our hair which was getting in the way a little! On our last night in San Francisco we saw Billy Connolly live at a theatre on the same road as our hostel! He was sooooooooooooooooooo funny! No idea how he manages to talk for 2 hours - very impressed!

On Wednesday we were up at 5am to catch our flight.... bound for THE BIG APPLE! 😊

Love,

Sel 'n' V xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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