Yosemite Valley - The Drive

Day 11 - We woke up at White Wolf to sub 40 degree temps and our giant fire pit still warm with coals.  I did my best MacGuyver skills to use the warm

coals to get the fire going little by little and.....VOILA...roaring fire!!!!  Just call me "Pioneer Woman". We warmed up our cold toes, collected our masses of firewood, and headed for the Yosemite Valley.  It was so hard to get campsites in the Valley....near impossible!  With 3 fast internet connections, we managed to get 3 one night spots in Upper Pines and tonight will be our first night!!!  We were told by someone searching for a spot in White Wolf that we couldn't even get INTO the Valley because of President Obama's visit.  So we did what any resporceful camper would do...we reserved another night at White Wolf....just in case....and forfeited our new $3.00 table cloth and one of our 3 giant Dickey's cups to make our site look occupied.

If we get in, we lost the table cloth and cup...if not, we have a place to sleep for the night.  👍. 

Well, we got in, but our 30 mile drive down into the Valley turned into a 3 hour, 30 minute parking lot of traffic thanks to the President.  They had one of two lanes completely closed off so the President and his Calcary could get around with out stopping. 

I took a little video of the parade of dance President cars passing us while we were inching our way into the Valley.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ajqm5ufNu7c

Finally, well past lunch, we found our site 184 in Upper Pines....I felt as though I had arrived at a Bonaroo Music Festival the sites were so crammed in.  I took this while sitting on my bed in the Casita...that Coleman tent was no more than 8 feet away from us.

Blah!!!!!  This was not the amazing Yosemite Valley camping experience I was hoping for...oh well, we'll make the best of it.  We ate a quick pb&j lunch since it was almost 2:00, unloaded the bikes, and headed for the showers in Half Dome Village...formerly Curry Village.  The showers were $5.00 per person or you could pay $5.00 per person to swim at the Curry Pool and also use the showers....SWIM TIME!  The boys swam for a full hour and we got the longest, warmest showers we've had yet....the Sequoia showers were 4 quarters for 3 minutes!  After we were all clean, we headed back to the Casita for a quick dinner then sought out on our bikes for a hike around Happy Isles Nature Trail.  

We arrived back at the Casita at sunset and went straight to bed...big adventures tomorrow!