Saturday 11th March – Yosemite National Park

Why do we never learn?!  I drank the most I have for the whole trip so far last night and I definitely knew it when I awoke this morning.  Even the effort to get painkillers from the bathroom cupboard was too much for the first 30 minutes or so of consciousness.  I was suffering not only the usual dehydration headache from what I had imbibed last night, but I also appeared to have done that thing where, inexplicably, I had slept with my neck in some kind of twisted position that made me feel I had whiplash.  Having a limited field of vision from being unable to look left or up very far without experiencing pain is not a good plan when you are due to visit the monolithic splendour of Yosemite that day, let me tell you!

We had wanted to be moving in good time this morning to avoid the traffic.  Instead, our guest made Simon and I bacon sandwiches in bed and we limped the RV out of our site at our 11am check out time…. just to park up by the road for coffee and another dose of painkillers!

I started to feel worse rather than better but thankfully Simon felt up to driving us into Yosemite with Becky riding up front whilst I had a little lay down on the sofa.  Due to the other entrance road being closed and it being a Saturday there was quite a queue to get in but that gave us time to enjoy the views above.

Once inside it was a case of stopping as often as we wanted and where we could find parking to enjoy the scenery.  What better way to recover from a hangover than with a bracing walk in fresh air, climbing over rocks to gain views of iconic waterfalls?

Lower Yosemite falls

Our plan had been to drive in from the west and take the north-west route out at the end of the day.  But again, the extreme winter weather had obliterated the road we’d hoped to use so we would have to re-trace our steps and leave the park the way we came in. Being a Saturday, it was busy in the park so parking was our only issue.  Thankfully we managed to find an RV-sized spot in a lodge car park near to Yosemite falls so we were able to walk to the lower falls.  Note, the amount of snow, meaning that the route to the higher Yosemite falls was closed until conditions improved.

On our way out of the park we were on the opposite side of the one-way system and, thanks to the impending sunset and clear skies we were treated to more stunning views.  I am running out of superlatives for this trip, I need some reinforcements! Here's a load more pics...

El Capitan

Bridalveil Falls

There were no campsites open in the park that were suitable for us at this time of year, so the obvious solution was to return to the Indian flat RV park from last night.  We got hooked up, had fajitas for dinner and watched a movie as we were all still feeling jaded from last night’s events along with our large dose of fresh air and exercise.  No one suggested a return visit to the bar.