In the hills with the bears !!

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Hello,
Firstly if you ever wondered why I never put the name of the place we're in, in the title . Thats because the most visited blog i've written is the one called Toronto and Niagara Falls, 127 people have viewed that blog, I don't think I know 127 people, next most popular was the Miley Cyrus one. As people just search the title.
Anyway, after a very windy drive up and over the hills out of San Francisco and passed a huge windmill farm along the way. We parked up in a little town called Groveland about 22 miles from the Yosemite National park entrance. Temperature was up in the 90's when we arrived , so the kids jumped in the pool. Oohh , a bit cold for an old bugger like me. Theres a sign by the toilets that says " we live in amongst the animals, please watch out for rattle snakes" Kylie laughed her head off when I drove the car about 200m over to the toilets in the dark, buggered if I was going to walk over there.
Tuesday, we headed into the park. $20 for a park pass that lasts all week. As we drove into the park , I was surprised to see alot of the trees either burn't around the bases or in other places , whole sections have been levelled. I guess forrest fires don't know when to stop , just because its a National Park. Once into the main valley, they had crews culling out trees along the road. They've changed their enviromental ways since I was here 30 years ago. The grass in the meadows is now so long that I would get lost walking through it. Instead of feeding the bears around the park out of the car window, they are chased away by the rangers. If they can sense you then your'e too close, thats the advice given by the park rangers.
Wednesday, we took the bikes in with us. Parked up in the parking area and went for a ride around the place to get our bearings.They have awesome sealed tracks for the cyclists, little yellow lines down the middle to stop you from running into each other. Tori joined up in the junior ranger program. Besides picking up a bag full of rubbish from the park , one of the things she had to do was go on a wilderness course with a ranger. So we rode down and met up with two other families doing the same thing. Ranger Christine showed the kids how to find bear poop ( Scat ) , it was on the footpath that we had all walked right past. After analysing it we deduced that it had eaten alot of berries along with a mars bar as the wrapper was in there. Then we walked into a wooded area and she showed them how the bears scratch at the trees to eat the bugs that are in them. She also had a pile of taxidermied animals that were all road kill at one time. The kids were very impressed. At the end of it she asked them look around for a hidden treasure. One girl found this green lunchbox hidden under some bark straight away. The ranger went on to tell us how some kids on one of her talks found the hidden treasure put there by some boy two years ago along with some of his belongings to be retreived at a later time. So she said if the kids would like to leave something , they make take something out of the box. Some bloody aussies were there last week and they left some Aussie money ( well that not very special ) so we said we would come back the next day and drop something off. After there we rode up to Mirror lake and walked the last bit as no bikes were allowed. One small problem , a lack of water. Yes the lake is dry due to the drought they have had lately. So we went for a walk in it and admired the huge towering rocks faces above us. Back to the car and we packed the bikes onto the rack again and drove up to Glacier Point. Its a huge cliff that looks over the Yosemite valley. It took us over an hour to get there as they were doing roadworks along the way. Helping America keep working through these economic tuff times, The sign said. Stepped out of the car and whoa , who left the fridge door open. We were up at 7210 ft and it was like 4 degrees. Lucky we all have a wardrobe in the car. It seems everyone else had red the book about going up to Gacier point and watching the sun set over the hills , especially on ' half dome' , one of the more famous peaks. So we sat there with our packet of 'Staxs' chips and watched the sunset, pretty cool. Right thats it I'm freezing !! We've seen enough sunset, lets hit the road. By the time we got back to the campground it was 1/4 to nine and we still hadn't had tea yet. Hence, Ice cream, crackers and other crap food that isn't really classed as dinner was consumed before jumping into bed.
Thursday, what a night!! Our little ice fridge that we live in was soooo cold last night as the temperature got down to 2 degrees and I'm sure it was about that in here too. We all had blankets on and were still cold, so I turned on the furnace for the 2nd time and tried to heat the place up. After breakfast we heading back into the valley. This time Kylie wanted us to go on a hike. So after stopping off at Toris hidden treasure box, she left them a 'Tiki" from good ole NZ . We started off on our 1.6 mile hike up to some waterfall. You woyuld have thought we were pulling the kids teeth out one by one !! It was fairly steep in places but for kids that have been out walking for the last 3 months, you wouldn't have thought they could go on any more. So at a bridge about 1 mil into it we stopped and they played in and around the huge rocks that were in the nearly dried up river for ages. So Kylie went on ahead while I supervised them , Yeh right. Your'e only as old as you feel, so I got in there and climbed up and over the rocks too. On the walk back down which I reckon is harder, Tori got a wasp sting on her hand. NOW she had something to moan about. So we stopped at the local store on the way out of the valley and bought a well deserved Ice cream. We drove south from there to the giant Sequoia trees of Mariposa Grove. I thought the Redwoods were big, these things look like they have big feet at the bottom of them . The oldest one there is spose to 2700 years old. They are massive. From there we drove out of the south entrance of the park to a place called Oakhurst, as the GPS said they had a Taco bell there. Sounds just like us after a hard day !! The roads in the Park are so windy as they have to have consideration for the beautiful scenery, so we went home the long and straight way. Stopped off to watch a local baseball game being played down at the local school. It was a very social outing, we had a laugh just watching. That will be the Tahiwi's versus the rest of us one day !!! So home about 9pm , this is becomming a habit.
Friday, well aren't I the smart one . I thought I would leave the heat on in the trailer overnight, so I set it for 22 degrees and we all cooked throughout the night. Mrs Claridge went to bed with her thermals on and man did I hear about that. Its hard to cool the place down once its hot without opening up the door !! Now Tori had done all the things in her ranger book , we had to head back to the visitor center to collect her badge. On the way into the park today , we came across a bunch of cars parked on the side of the road. There were two wild bears just foraging around amongst the trees , right beside the road. YES !!, I had been waiting for this all week. The ranger said they are all around the place, but its a huge National park. Theres nothing like actually standing there watching a bear walking around and theres no fence or safety barrier between you and it. You are in its territory ( This isn't the zoo !!) if it wants to attack you it can and all of a sudden you have a real appreciation for this animal. They are called ' Black Bears' but they can be just about any colour, these ones were a browny colour. Fairly big buggers, we must have watched them for at least 10 minutes. It was awesome. Went on in and picked up Tori's badge and came home again. There was a ranger there with a rifle on the way out. I guess hes there for public safety. had a quiet cleanng up afternoon as we have managed to bring ants from San Francisco with us. Typical the buggers got into my gluten free brownies !!
Saturday, we packed up camp and drove down closer to San Francisco. Got a campground in a place called Manteca, just out of Stockton. Its on a golf course and the RV park is right in the middle of the course. It has a sign up saying that the RV park accepts no responsibility for golf ball damage to vehicles . Good on ya !! So we set up and headed off down the road to walmart to get some supplies. 3 hours later after Mrs Claridge decided to get a haircut and a pedicure aswell, we got home to find that the wind had picked up since we left and he clothes horse was upside down beside the trailer. Lucky we are on a concrete pad here and not on stones like where we just came from. Were off to watch the San Francisco 49ers play the St Louis Rams at candlestick park in San Fran tomorrow , Football that is. Will let you know how we get on.

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Photos

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Our bear sighting.

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Mr Bear !!

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Yosemite.

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Tori with half dome behind her during sunset, at Glacier point.

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Freezing up at glacier Point waiting for sunset.

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Up at glacier Point.

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Half dome rock in Yosemite.

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Tree crews, culling out trees from the forrest.

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Inside Yosemite valley.

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Us on our bike ride around the park.

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Kids posing in Yosemite.

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Scenery.

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Giant Sequioa tree.

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The three of us next to the roots of a Sequoia to show the size of the thing.

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Tori in front of the big Sequoia

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Josh leaning on one of the Sequoia's that had been cut down.

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Sign on the toilet door at the campground.

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Travel trailer squashed in at San Francisco.

Comments

[Christa]

Awesome photos!
Lawn needs mowing! :-)