May 18 To Yosemite National Park

 

Today our destination is Yosemite National Park.  It will be about a 4 hour drive to our RV, Tent place.  It is about 25 miles from the park. 

The drive is through the central valley with wine vineyards, orange groves and mountains in the distance.  (I’m writing this several days late so am not remembering many details).  We get to the RV Park a early afternoon and check in.  It’s hot.  Crap.  The swimming pool is empty and they are making some repairs.  Oh my, all those big RV’s are close together!  The tent section in down the hill.  No other tents are there.  There is one site with a tree and some shade.  That’s the one they assigned us.  The picnic table has seen better days.  We decide that rather than set up the tent in the heat of the day, we’ll drive to the park, visit the visitor’s center so tomorrow, we will know what we want to do in the park.  Get in the car, set Waze to Yosemite Village.  What? 1 ½ hours?  But we’re supposed to be only 23 miles from the park.  Ah, we are 23 miles from the entrance to the park but then one drives an hour in the park before getting to anything. 

At the visitor’s center, Nick is talking with one of the rangers about what to do and where we’re staying outside the park.  She catches that we have a tent.  She asks if we have it with us because there is space for tonight in the reserved campground and then we’ll be here in the morning to get a place in the first come, first serve campground.  Avoid 3 hours of driving each day!  Hell, Yes!  We’ll forgo the overpriced RV park for staying in the park. 

We drive through the valley of the park (which is the only part that is open because of the high snow fall this year) and find our campsite.  We set up camp.  Seems that there is some kind of youth group in the sites next to us.  They are well supervised so all is fine.  After set up, we venture out to forage for food.  There is a place with a bit of a formal restaurant and attached to it is more of a fast food type place.  We opt for the cheaper choice and get chicken fingers and fries.  Pretty mediocre food but the view is phenomenal.  We drive around a bit more to become familiar with what and where things are. We find Camp 4 which is the first come, first serve campground. We walk around a bit to get a feel for how the place works and where we will want to try to get a site in the morning.  We talk with some people who are planning to leave tomorrow.  OK.  We’ve got a plan. Tomorrow we will go to that site and set up our tent and we know we’ve got a spot.   We’re set for tomorrow and settle in for the night.

Charging places are a premium.  This is in a corner of the restaurant.