Yosemite Trip

We headed up to Yosemite this last weekend. Very beautiful, just like everything you hear about it. Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures for several reasons: very crowded, pesky wiener dogs, didn't have a ton of time, and needed to get going since it started snowing. I had heard about the monstrous rocks El Capitan and Half Dome, but I didn't realize how big they were until I saw them up close. Since I didn't do the loyal Tinj blog subscribers any justice by whiffing on the pictures, here's the National Park link with pictures: http://www.nps.gov/yose/.

We were going to traverse Yosemite to the east side and stay in Mammoth Lakes, CA, which is supposed to be a really cool town with a great ski area (http://www.visitmammoth.com/). However, both reasonable routes were closed due to snow in the Sierra Nevada range. Expedia nicely agreed to cancel our room in Mammoth Lakes. Since we had already driven quite a long way, we decided we might as well go somewhere else cool. That magical place, it was decided, turned out to be the Monterey Peninsula, specifically Carmel, which is where we stayed. We got in late, and had to get going on Sunday because we had a long drive back, so once again, I was not coordinated enough to get pictures. Henceforthtowith, I will again link to a website: http://www.carmelcalifornia.com/. This is one of the neatest places I have ever been to. I ran down to the beach on Sunday morning (that's why there are no pictures of this--I didn't want to carry the camera while I was running, and honestly, I didn't realize what I would be missing). Very cool--big waves crashing on the rocky beach, beautiful houses, and, by the way, Pebble Beach Golf Course. From the public beach, look off to the North and you can see the course about 3/4-1 mile away. That's probably the closest I will ever get to that landmark.

We started our drive back by going on the Pacific Coast Highway, which was beautiful. I highly recommend this drive to anyone who ever has the chance to make it. I will post a couple of pictures from this drive. These include one of Tally, the dogs, and me; one of some Hereford cattle (that's what we have back in Powers Lake) in a pasture near the Ocean; and one of Elephant Seals sunning themselves.

We wound our way back partially through some of the vast California wine country. We didn't stop, but will be going back sometime, so stay tuned for that. Also, we did drive by a very cool place called "Hearst Castle". We didn't stop, but I looked it up when we got home (http://www.hearstcastle.org/), and I kind of wished we would have. Oh well, maybe another time.