On our way there, we passed a closed road... we drove by the detour road and saw that there had been a rock slide! Scary!
We are still going through those 4 lbs of Jelly Belly jelly beans that Josh bought at the Jelly Belly factory... we got two bags of Belly Flops, which are the mistake jelly beans. Sometimes you find very cute little jelly bean men :)
The sign for Yosemite was not as grand as I expected... but it was beautiful all around the area!
We stopped to take photos of this pretty creek.
Josh thought that the entrance to the park was very neat, and we saw our first wildlife!! There was a deer and also maybe a baby moose (not caught on camera) right by our car!
I decided to jump next to this spring... being springy by the spring!
There was a lot of snow in these wide open areas, and a lot of families were sledding and playing in the snow. We also got our first glimpse of the beautiful rocks!
Our first recognizable point was Bridalveil Falls! Unfortunately the camera lens was getting splashed with water from the falls, so our photo is pretty blurry. It was very slippery at the viewpoint but very neat!
We drove by Upper Yosemite Falls and the Royal Arches...
... and then decided to do a 4 mile hike of Yosemite Falls! It was a very steep hike - we gained 1,000 feet from the trail head! - with a lot of switchbacks. Once we got out of the forest, Josh decided to do some modeling....
A little bit farther up was Columbia Rock, which offered a great vista for seeing Half Dome and the valley.
Josh continued modeling here... and being very goofy, too!
About 0.5 miles farther from Canyon Rock was the vista to see Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls! Josh got extremely close to the edge... it doesn't really show in the photo, but it was a straight drop down!
We passed some more wildlife on our way by El Capitan, another famous point in Yosemite.
Just before exiting through a tunnel, Josh took this photo of what was behind us. It must be amazing to enter the park through that tunnel because you are hit with El Capitan, Half Dome, and Bridalveil Falls in one amazing view!
It was a long and windy drive down mountain roads to Clovis. We met our hosts, Kate and Erik, at their apartment. Kate is a PhD student in forensic psychology and Erik works at a center for children with autism. They are probably the funniest people we have stayed with so far! Erik was really hilarious and we had a lot of fun listening to them talk about their travels and adventures.
Josh's high for the day was the beauty of Yosemite! My high was completing the hike... it was very steep at some points but it was definitely worth it! It made me eager to do more hikes in national parks, both on this trip and in the future. I didn't really have a low for today, but Josh's low was doing the hike without water... we were stupid enough to run out of water before the hike so we didn't have any to take with us or drink when we got back. Very stupid! Josh's "ho" is the rock slide that we passed on our way to Yosemite; it's scary that nature can just wreak such havoc! My "ho" is Josh's "beard"... he is currently on a shaving strike and it's getting pretty long!
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