Day 5 - west to east - Yosemite!

After leaving the beautiful northern Cal rugged coastline we headed back south towards San Francisco before heading east to Yosemite Park. What a treat! It was a looong drive that day - - getting into Yosemite around 4pm - just enough time to drive the main loop and do one shorter hike to a waterfall. The best thing, though, was that this was P's first time to Yosemite and it was my pleasure to share it with him. Also, coming at that time of day meant a lot of the day-tourists had left to drive back to their hotels, and all the campers had headed back to their camps for dinner and campfire. This meant the usual traffic of cars and people was substantially less and we enjoyed it greatly at the Golden Hour of sunset.



As the sun went down and we were exhausted from driving 8 hours that day we knew we needed to find a place to camp or stay. Of course all the campsites were full so we headed out of the park in a southern direction. I was on the phone with the closest town about an hour away trying to make hotel reservations for that night. As we exited the park and only about 10 minutes out of it was a large hotel that clearly was meant for those who wanted quick access to go back and forth to the park without camping in it. We were so tired, but we decided to go for it and see if they had availability and how much. (I told P of the story of when my ex and I went to the Grand Canyon and paid almost $200 to stay at the closest piece of junk motel to the park entrance.) Patrick didn't even park and stop the car but let me out at the lobby and I went in - where, miracle of miracles, I got the last room AND it was only $129! A DEAL!!! E loves a good deal!