Our move continued:
Day 7 - August 1, 2011
(Driving to Yosemite National Park- this picture doesn't do the road justice, but this was a pretty scary, twisting, turning road that we drove for about 2 hours to get to Yosemite. Not my favorite portion of the trip, but if you want to access this part of California you better learn how to love roads like this (and learn how to accept the fact that whoever designed these roads did NOT put guard rails in places where a logical person would think guard rails should be!))
(Yosemite National Park - the country's 1st National Park! Definitely one of my favorite places on the trip! Yosemite, was truly one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, and I wish we had spent more time there. I also wish it wasn't the middle of summer because unfortunately, some of the beauty of the place is overshadowed by the thousands and thousands of tourists swarming the area.)
(Half-Dome - the famous rock formation at Yosemite)
(Us with Half-Dome behind us)
(Me at Yosemite! It was so beautiful here! If you look closely, you can see Yosemite Falls behind me.)
(Yosemite Falls)
(me by the Lower Yosemite Falls - this location was beautiful [minus the hundreds of people that we thankfully managed to not capture in this picture]. It also felt really good because you could feel the mist from the falls right here, and this was the first day of our trip where we had officially left the rainy, cold weather of the Pacific Northwest behind. So needless to say, after 3 years in Washington, Mr. V and I both were beyond hot, sweaty and uncomfortable once we crossed the mountains into the summer heat.)
(me with El Capitan behind me. Not my favorite picture of myself, but El Capitan is one of the most famous places in the park, so even though the picture sucks, I still needed one of me at this location.)
(Look closely and you'll see 2 people climbing El Capitan! This was seriously insane to watch. We were in the field across the road from here and there was a group of people who were just watching the climbers with binoculars. It may be hard to see, but it was just before sunset when we took this picture, so they were setting up tents on the rock. I honestly don't completely understand how people nail tents into the side of a sheer rock wall and then sleep there all night, but it apparently takes about 3 days to climb El Capitan so I suppose sleeping is necessary. The crazy part is that as we were driving to Yosemite, we heard a news story about a woman who fell to her death while trying to climb this exact same rock just two days before this. Clearly that news didn't stop these two crazy people though! It was making me nervous watching them!) Day 8 - August 2, 2011
(We stayed in the town of Angels Camp, California for two nights during this part of the trip. Its a small town about 2 hours to the west of Yosemite [so yes we drove 4 hours round trip on one day just to visit the park]. Take my advice for this - if you ever want to go to Yosemite, make reservations WAY in advance [like 2 years in advance], otherwise you will be staying about 2 hours outside of the park. Thankfully we knew this before we left Washington, so we had made reservations in Angels Camp. If we had waited until we got there, we may have had to back track and stay even farther outside of the park because all of the hotels in Angels Camp were full when we arrived. All of the towns in this area are really small old California Gold Rush towns so lodging is few and far between!)
(The town of Angels Camp, California - All of the towns in this area of California are really small towns that are from the 1849 Gold Rush era. I love towns like this because they are full of history and relatively untouched by modern society. They still look old and they hold onto their history instead of caving into corporate America towns. You'd be hard pressed to find a Walmart within 4 hours of this town, and I love that! I had never been to this part of California before, and it was kind of fascinating to me.)
(Me in Angels Camp, California. There was random artwork throughout this whole area related to the Gold Rush - and the reason for the existence of these towns.)
(Driving away from Angels Camp, a little North of Yosemite, over the Sierra-Nevada Mountains through the Stanislaus National Forest and Sonora Pass. More winding, twisting, scary, steep roads, with beautiful scenery. This was also our official exit from the West Coast. Once we crossed over the mountains and into the desert of California, it really felt like we had officially left Washington behind.)
(Stanislaus National Forest, California - this is a beautiful area to drive through!)
(Stanislaus National Forest, California - near Sonora Pass)
(We visited the California ghost town of Bodie. Its another Gold Rush town, on the eastern edge of the Sierra-Nevada mountains. Its also the most well preserved ghost town in all of America. This is where the history nerd in me comes out because I LOVE stuff like this! Thomas took this picture as we were driving into Bodie. Once you leave the paved road, you drive for about 10 miles on a gravel and dirt road. Its so bumpy and dusty that by the time we left, our cars were beyond dirty and the racks on top of the cars had gotten loose from all the bumps. He likes to call this picture "Brooklet eating my dust - literally".)
(Driving into Bodie, California. I like this picture because you can see how there is nothing around this town. I'm beyond fascinated by the fact that during the gold rush people packed up everything they owned, then traveled across the country, and set themselves up in towns in the absolute middle of nowhere, just because they MIGHT find gold.)
(the ghost town of Bodie, California. I love ghost towns and historic places, and this is by far one of the best places I've seen. Its so well preserved and even though part of the town burned down years ago, there is still so much left! You can easily spend an entire day here exploring the place. We spent about an hour, but I wish we had known how cool this place would be ahead of time. I would have loved to have scheduled more time to spend here.)
(Ghost Town of Bodie, California)
(inside one of the houses in Bodie. So much was left behind here, and it is now deemed to be in a "preserved state of decay". I loved that there was so much still here because it really gives you a sense of what it was like to live there. It looks like people just packed their bags and left one day, and didn't bother taking all of their stuff with them.)
(Me inside of of the houses in Bodie.)
(walking down one of the streets in Bodie. I like this picture because you can see the old town behind me, but you can also see the vast nothingness in the distance. I couldn't even imagine what it would have been like to live here. I'm impressed that this town was as large as it was.)
(outside of Bodie, California with the Sierra-Nevada Mountains behind me)
(We stopped here to fix the racks on top of the cars since they had become loose and dislodged from the the bumps on the gravel road. I just like this picture because it really gives of sense of where we were. There is NOTHING out here! Behind my car in this picture is where the town of Bodie is...but you can't even see it from here. In the direction of Bodie, is the California desert and in front of my car, which you can't see, are the Sierra-Nevada mountains. Other than that, there is nothing around for miles and miles. We were driving to our hotel for the night, but we wouldn't even reach it for another 2 hours from this point - and there were no towns of any significant size that we passed in those two hours. I'm pretty sure that stuff like this will always fascinate me, but I guess thats what I get for growing up in the most densely populated state. The concept of vast wilderness is just so foreign to me, and even though I've seen areas like this, I still find it hard to wrap my mind around.)
Still More to Come!
Still More to Come!
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