Yosemite National Park, California

After San Francisco, we drove south toward Monterey for lunch, before heading east to Yosemite National Park.


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Monterey is a nice coastal town, in a similar way to Dun Laoghaire, with a Fisherman's Wharf (pier with shops on) and a yachting harbour. We only stayed long enough for a sandwich above the waves, before we were chased east by some serious looking weather.

We crossed big country on some small roads, passing nut and fruit plantations, and as we headed up into the hills, some meadow.


As we drew closer to our lodge (Tenaya Lodge, near Fish Camp, just outside the park) we stopped in Oakhurst for a quick hamburger - this was our first Carls Jr, and what a burger! Best fast food type burger I've had, hands down. Anyway, I was glad we had this snack. As the road snaked its way up towards Fish Camp, reasonably steep drop-offs protected only by trees on the downhill side, the amount of snow and ice still around markedly increased.

Was I nervous? Well, I was hoping we weren't driving into somewhere that we'd be unable to drive out of 3 days later because of snow, and there was more ice on the road than I expected, so it was a little tense. We got up without snow chains, thankfully!

And Tenaya lodge is a lovely spot to arrive at, with braziers burning outside the front door, and a huge lobby inside. We got our keys to our apartment, and made our way there. Some of the snow had stuck.



So that was nice - about 0 degrees in the evening, dropping as it got later. There was a nice electric fire in the room though, so it was pretty cosy. We had been following the news a little bit on our trip, and were wary that that US Federal Government were potentially closing down because of a stalemate over budget. With that in mind, and assured the Park would be open on Saturday anyway, we booked 2 seats on a bus tour.

Boy was I glad! I could enjoy the scenery, I wasn't driving, and there was plenty of snow and ice on the roads so the rangers were sticky on having snow chains fitted (we of course in a rental car, didn't have such things!). We had a nice day touring all the spots in the park, stopping for the occasional photo op,

El Capitan.

and picnic lunch in the valley floor (by Yosemite falls, but more on that later). A couple of snow showers fell just to upset the nerves (were we being snowed in!!!!!???) but other than that the sun shone all day.



The park is stunning. The scenery, the rocks, the mountains are just amazing, and really very imposing.



You could spend weeks in here photographing the place, it's hard to get a bad one (though I managed, I can assure you!) Sometimes disappointing because there is nothing to give you scale, but these are just a couple of the photographs. More to be shared later!




There are a few more images at my pix.ie album, here.

San Francisco, Parte the Seconde.

I has returned, as you can see. I brung with me some more photos that you may or may not be interested in seeing. That said, if you've got this far, well done and I hope you enjoy them!



So the Golden Gate bridge we saw, well, we had to - I wanted to. It's brilliant, elegant in form and orange in colour. Well, International Orange, to be precise. We walked about halfway out, and then came back, had some nice views of SF and the bay too!




And it's worth noting that while the Golden Gate has it's own police, the California Highway Patrol (or CHiPs as I like to call them) still drop in from time to time. I love the gold and blue helmets! They're on BMW R-1200 (I think) bikes now, not the classic Kawasakis, but it's still great to see em.



I mentioned in my earlier post that the cables for the cable car system are all run from the same location. Credit to my disorganisation and poor blog post planning, I kept that photo for today! You can see the main power and gear units in the foreground, and the cables run over the big pulleys. In the background you might see the tension pulleys which move further away as the cable stretches, these keep the cables nice and tight for the grips on the cars.



That brings me to the end of today's few photos - there are more at the album on pix.ie if you're interested!

Next might be the transit to Yosemite....

Honeymoon - the pictures start here.

So, everything's downloaded (all 1500 or so files.....) and I've started to go through them with a view to picking out the most shareable. I've put a few on my pix.ie account so far, feel free to browse and laugh at them.



San Francisco was our first stop, after quite a lengthy pair of flights (5.5 hours transatlantic, and another 5 hours or so transcontinental). Hilly spot! Time differences meant that we were waking up bright and early at about 6am, but getting tired by 8pm or 9pm. San Francisco is a lovely city with plenty to see and do. Highlights for me here were the Golden Gate bridge (another post), the cable cars (see above) the sourdough bread that is everywhere, and eating lunch in the Zoetrope café and realising at the end that it's owned by Francis Coppola!

It's a hilly city - this picture might help you. We walked the hills the first day, heading North from our hotel (The Hilton Union Square on O'Farrell St) without realising exactly what we were letting ourselves in for!



We were to wear ourselves out consistently every day, even with the public transport pass we bought on day 2. The Hilton is very well located, but we were a small bit disappointed with being able to hear not just that our neighbours were on the phone, but all of their travel plans and details through the hotel room wall. Also the in-hotel coffee shop and restaurant were expensive but we could have expected that.

Chinatown was part of our first day's exploration. I was puzzled by some of the signs, and not just those that were in Chinese:


And there was plenty of interesting street art too


Dominating the skyline from almost every viewpoint is the Transamerica Bank Building, or the Transamerica Building. Striking in it's height and form, it looms above everything. Very interesting.



Feminists and U2 fans (it's a line in the song "Trying to throw your arms around the world") will recognise the line "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" well, we saw this in SF which kinda puts a lie to the whole thing:



As I mentioned the sourdough above, these below will illuminate what I meant. SF is famous for its sourdough bread, which is risen using natural yeast rather than cultivated yeast. The bread has a sour taste and a lovely dense texture which is amazing toasted. Or, scooped out and filled with soup as these guys do:




So I'll finish the post with a couple of photos of the cable cars. They are powered by cables running beneath the tracks (where the museum is), and the cars/trams each have a clutch or grip which is used to grab onto the continuously moving cables when they want to move, and let go when they want to stop. There are of course independent brakes on the tram!


There are turntables at each end of the line (certainly on the Powell & Hyde Line), where the driver and brakeman turn the car manually to go back in the direction it came from


As the cable cars pass quite closely to each other, and passengers hang off the side, it is important not to lean out


So I hope you enjoyed the first rather long post. More to come!