24th May 2012

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Last full day in Yosemite Vally. This has to be the highlight of the tour for me (Bob). The scenery is breathtaking and the climbing is mind blowing.
A now normal 7am breakfast before driving back into the valley to go Sentinel Dome. A spectacular granite dome above glacier point.
On the way there we encountered 3 mule deer walking along the road and a bit further on we saw a large black bear run very fast across the road in front of us. No photographs though he was to fast. Unfortunately Dinah did not see him as she was in the back on the wrong side. I suppose this is the luck of the draw. She was very disappointed.
It was quite cool to start the walk today because of the cooling weather and the altitude (7,500ft) so started out in a fleece and shorts. It has been getting progressively cooler each day since we arrived 91 degrees the first day the mid 80's now mid 70's a much more pleasant temperature.
The climb to the top of the dome had to be taken slowly because of the altitude and unusually for the National Park the approach was mainly on a dirt track.
Returned to Yosemite Village for coffe and then walked to Yosemite Lodge to get the free internet service.
Had lunch whilst trying to connect to the internet but only managed to post the blog text before the internet connection froze up.
Started talking to 2 climbers sitting next to us also trying to use the internet. They had just returned from a 2.5 day climb on El Capitan (3,000ft granite wall). But were telling us that the climbing was the easy bit as they had queued for 2 days and nights at the bottom of wall waiting to start in a queue of climbers and then had taken a further day to descend round the back of the wall.
I (Bob) had said to him that it must be a bit intimidating looking up the wall at the start and he said no the scary bit was looking down the wall from half way up.
They also told us that the internet connection in Curry Village was much better/stronger
and better seats, so we decided to pack up in Yosemite Lodge and head over to Curry Village.
We caught the free shuttle bus between villages and went to Curry Village where we were able to post the pics to go with yesterdays blog. After posting the pics we checked into our blog to find that the text had already been posted by Neal. Well done Neal.
I should explain that we are having trouble at the moment loading any text into our blog the ASUS software now seems to be out of date and will not let us post the text. We also have not had a hotel internet connection for the last 3 days so are having to post emails to Neal as and when we get chance and he is doing the blog posting for us.
I may be able to fix it in the next hotel if it has an internet facility.
Off to dinner at Yosemite Lodge Hotel for the last time, dinner on the banks of the river Merced, before setting off to Bishop , a town in the desert , on the way to Las Vegas tomorrow.

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