Day 38 - Monterey - Yosemite National Park

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Our leave time today was 8am, and so we got to introduce the new guys to the ritual that was struggling to get through breakfast, packing our gear and tents up, loading up and ready to go by the designated time.
The day’s destination ws Yosemite National Park, which meant the journey again was a long one, broken up by the shopping and lunch in a very empty car park of the San Louis reservoir.
But first we had a brief walk around Monterey, which offered a lovely looking view of the bay, but not a lot else, apart from an area full of Californian sea otters as well as some endangered species of sea bird that Monterey is home to.
As Steve, Scott and I headed along the pier to get closer to the rocks full of sea otters, we spotted one of two swimming nearby, as well as an injured sea otter struggling to make its way up the rocks to safety, or even breathe. We spot that it has a nasty looking mark on its body, and we were not sure if it is a wound from an attack or something else. So we felt sorry for the animal as it is either struggling to get up the rocks or cling to life.
When we make it to the end, the sight of what appears like hundreds of sea otter mingling with these endangered birds makes for an impressive viewing. We finally pulled ourselves away from the lovely creatures, and in killing time, get some takeaway hot chocolate from a nearby grocery shop, although my plastic lid didn’t work and I managed to spill quite a bit of my drink, as well as taking forever in drinking it.
We found Sarah on her own on a nearby bench, having dipped her toes in the nearby water. She was looking a little quiet, and we soon found out that today is a national bank holiday back in Ireland, so Sarah was feeling a wee bit home sick at the moment. I kind of know how she felt, it was Dad’s birthday that day as well, so I was missing home a tad.

When we finally hit Yosemite, Todd takes us to some viewpoints in the Valley, including some small but wonderful looking waterfalls near El Capitan, before dropping us off for a quick walk down to some small sequoias.
Sadly going down is always easy, but getting back up is much harder. On the walk back, Jess and I head back together ahead of the others, and we end up having a great talk, first about the guys we had just left back in LA, and many other things.
For the first half we had barely been alone together, so I felt I had seen another side to Jess that day. And I liked it.

After the walk, Todd takes us to our site, which is similar to the one just outside of Zion in that it was on a hill, and the walk up to the nearby toilets was a struggle. At least the pitches were flat.

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