Northern California Day 6 - Yosemite

(The WiFi here is weak and my pictures aren't really uploading. I'll post all as soon as I can!)

8:00pm - sitting outside the common/WiFi room looking at this: 

As I write tonight's entry after a long tiring day. Neither of us slept well, I blame the altitude. Went to breakfast at the hotel, which consisted of coffee, oj, muffin, bread, granola, yogurt. Set out around 9 for glacier point. We had a grand plan to park at badger pass ski area and wait there till 10 and take the shuttle up to the hikes we had planned. This is what the visitors center and our hotel told us we had to do. At 9:45, we're chilling on the shuttle when dear ole Jim looks at us sternly and informs that the shuttle won't run til the parking lot at the top of the mountain fills up, and that yesterday that was around 1pm. He also reassured us the road to the top wasn't that bad. Thanks Jim the bus driver for being the only person to give us accurate advice! Actually, the lack of consistent, reliable signage and information here is borderline embarrassing for one of the country's most important national parks.

Anyway, Jim was right and the road wasn't that bad. Parked in the big lot and made the short easy walk to glacier point, which has beautiful views over the valley. Went a few minutes down the road to the Taft point/sentinel dome parking lot and lucked out by getting the prime parking spot. Did the Taft point hike first, which was mostly a gentle walk through the wooded forest, and it then opens out onto this vast rocky area with fissures. You can go all the way out to the end where there are scarily minimal guardrails. Erica went all the way out....I didn't. 

Anyway, made it back to the car, put the ac on for a while, and pondered doing the sentinel dome trail. Asked people, who said it wasn't that great. It was over 90 and we were getting tired from the heat and altitude, so we went up a couple minutes and decided we had enough. 

Drove back to the hotel area and went to the little pioneer village, which was a Vermont style covered bridge, some old buildings and a blacksmith. Went to the store next door, got a bottle of wine and some snacks, and made our own happy hour at the hotel! Ate and drank on the chairs by our porch, then relaxed and had an overpriced dinner at the hotel restaurant to have an easy evening. 

According to the fitbit, I did 18,760 steps, 7.46 miles and the equivalent of 74 flights of stairs. Yikes!