Yosemite

I have been home for almost 2 months now and I have been meaning to get this blog finished.... but everyday something is on and now that I'm home again it just doesn't seem that important. My memories of everything are fading and it is really interesting to me to read back through what I have written and see what I have thought at the time. I look at my photos now and think "Gee, that looks nice" and it's only when I read back do I remember that at the time I was hot and bothered and just wanted to be somewhere air conditioned with a freezing cold Coke and a nice meal.

Anyway, in the next 2 posts I will write what I remember.

Yosemite (Yo-sem-it-ee; I kept calling it Yo-sem-ite) Valley was where we finally got to at about 2am after driving all day from Las Vegas. We had booking into the old lodge above that was hundreds of years old. It was freezing though, but comfortable.
The next day we went to have a look at the old forest of Redwoods. This tree, below, had fallen over years and year ago, but redwood timber doesn't rot easily so as you can see it is still laying where it fell.
Here is one of the biggest trees in the forest, the Grizzly Giant. Roneal is walking towards it in the bottom of the picture.
The day after we drove to Yosemite Valley, and wow! What a view. I don't think it was as pretty as Lauterbrunnen, but it was still amazing. The cliffs were huge!
Finally we saw a bear! This is a brown bear and it was coming after a deer that had been hit and killed by a car. The park ranger came and took the deer away, but the bear just stood there anyway.
We hired some bikes in the valley and rode around the bike paths. In some places it was really hot and in others it was freezing.

Below the cliffs were lots of bolders that I suppose have fallen from the cliffs over time. Brody and Chris had a good time climbing them. I, still only wearing my flat shoes that I have worn all over Europe, can't really do any climbing. I think some real walking shoes might have been a good idea, but then again we were only here for 3 days.