Yosemite..WOW

Yes, it is truly WOW worthy!

Today was the latest I've slept in...6:30 am...imagine that. For those of you who know me, you're probably laughing your head off! I am not a morning person, what is California doing to me?

The first part of the plan for today was to do the "park"; there are tons of pull offs with great views of all of the things you'd ever want to photograph and about 150 other things you didn't even know existed that you must also get. The plan worked pretty well, but there are a few items - Half Dome, Glacier Point and some local waterfalls, local to Foresta where we're staying that is - that haven't been captured. Those are for tomorrow.

The second part of the plan was to do the tram ride in the Mariposa Grove, the forest of the big Sequoias. Success! by the way the tram ride is $26.50 per person! They don't tell you that before hand. Every time its mentioned there's just a $ in place of the cost...and only one! They should be like the cruiselines and use $, $$ or $$$ depending on how expensive the activity is...this would have been a $$.

We ate dinner at the famous Wawona Hotel. I think it's famous? It was very good...crab cakes for me, meatloaf for R...I should say half a cow, that meatloaf was huge! and yes, I probably am fattening my friend up a bit because for dessert the waiter - Dave - recommended bread pudding. Bread pudding then! We figured if anyone was going to do a bread pudding right, it would be this old victorian hotel. It did not disappoint. I only had a tiny bit, but there was none left on the plate when we walked out.

Last evening, about 6ish we headed out for "gas and food"... HA! Gas we found in about 6 miles - although someone told us it would be 15...we were thankful for the 6. Food was nowhere to be found - the gas pumps are open 24/7 at Cranes Flat, but the store closes promptly at 5PM. FYI...gas is $4.99 per gallon inside the park at Cranes Flat and at Wawona, the only 2 places we've seen. YES $4.99 and we were even lower on gas last night than the night before. The additional complication is because there are about 100 miles of park to deal with, you can't get out and to something cheaper in a reasonable amount of time especially when you're almost on E.

A few more travel rules...

     7) GAS UP! - Don't let the tank go below 1/4 - you'll just feel better knowing you have some gas! (hehe)
     8) READY FOR YOUR CLOSE UP! - Take all the cameras, smart phones and chargers for everything when you leave the house to take pictures. You never know what's going to run out of battery life and there's little worse than NOT being able to take a picture in the park.