Good-bye to Yosemite and Hello to the Big Trees!

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October 26, 2006, Thursday. We signed up for a photography walk with a gal from the Ansel Adams Gallery. Ansel Adams, noted photographer of the beauties of nature was commissioned to capture on film the unique beauty of the national parks in the west. This was basically an advertising plan to educate people…. and my did it work!!
Back to the photography walk, we got tips on lighting, composition, etc. etc.---quite informative. Of course, we got some more photos.
One comment we heard over and over---is---“You don’t want to come to visit Yosemite in summer---it is a zoo!” The number of tourists visiting Yosemite in the summer months is mind boggling. Glad we are here in the late fall.
After lunch we biked to the trailhead of Mirror Lake. When filled with water, this lake offers beautiful reflections of the surrounding cliffs, no so in late fall----well it was a nice hike anyway.
Tonight Ahwahnee Lodge, a posh hotel, was our treat for dinner. It wasn’t a “Bob meal” with lots of good stuff, but as Bob said, it was a “few dainty things on a plate with fufu and sauce in a design”. At any rate we didn’t have to cook!
Back at home “the Upper Pines Campground” was busy with BEAR activity. As bears are getting ready to hibernate, they want to eat a lot, and campgrounds are a good place to find food. We were glad to be in a RV and not in a tent!! The Rangers were busy chasing the bears and it was not a restful night! This went on for a good portion of the night.
October 27,2006, Friday. Our final walk around Yosemite was to the meadows and the Chapel, the only remaining building from the original village of the 1890’s.
Lovely views as we drive up out of the valley and onto the sequoia Groves at Mariposa, CA. The “Big Trees” are the largest living things on our planet. Some of the sequoia trees live for 3,000 years and we
stood next to one that was 290 feet tall and 28 feet in diameter! These trees are tenacious in their desire live. A young sequoia grows rapidly; they do not succumb to insects or fungi, and they are able to survive forest fires. They like lots of water, yet have lived through decades of drought? The bark is sort of soft or cork-like, not great wood for building. The groves were lush, quiet and stately.
On to Fresno for the night, we need electricity to charge everything.

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