Finishing Yosemite and Travel Day

We finished the walk around Glacier Point and boarded the bus for the drive back down.  There are normally several stops, but traffic was so bad that we only stopped twice.  That's okay.  The views were still amazing!

I zoomed into the distant peaks from the shot above to the shot below.

And had to make use of the panoramic feature again!

Probably the most photographed spot in any national park:

When we got back to the starting point, we decided to walk to the base of Yosemite Falls for a picture or two.

On the tour we learned that Yosemite Falls, along with many others in the park, is only flowing for a few months out of the year.  They are created by snowmelt, so they only occur during spring and early summer.  Yosemite Falls is often just a trickle by August and sometimes completely dry by then.  I had no idea that those falls weren't fed by another tributary.  I'm glad our trip was accidentally during the time that the falls were actually falling!

On the walk back to the car, I spotted this sign on one of the lodge rentals:

I had a Monty Python moment.  "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"

As we were driving out of the park, we stopped for a few more photo ops.

The tunnel was both freaky and awesome at the same time.

We made our way down the mountains and headed toward Fresno.  It was about dusk when we hit the first little town outside the park and there was a road block with a sobriety checkpoint.  I looked over at Brad and said, "It's not even 7pm.  Why set up a sobriety checkpoint this early?"  Then it hit me.  We had seen plenty of people floating in tubes on the river and drinking in the park.  Obviously this little town profits from the drink-all-day-long-at-the-park people.  I stopped, handed over my Georgia license and rental agreement, and waited.  The officer looked at the license, looked at me, smiled and said, "Enjoy your stay in California."  I told him we were enjoying it very much, as he handed me back my stuff and waved us on.

We grabbed dinner at a Jack in the Box at the first bigger town we came to.  We don't have a Jack in the Box at home, so it was an adventure of sorts.  A slightly greasy adventure, but still new and different for us.

Sunday, June 28th - 

We were up early and headed down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast.  The buffet didn't have much to offer, so we ordered from the menu.  They had eggs benedict, which made me very happy.  I absolutely love eggs benedict.  I even make it at home for special occasions.  We all ate too much and then packed up the van to check out.  The plan was to hit the road for Anaheim, but somebody (Brad) made a wrong turn somewhere and we wound up headed out for the coast instead.  That was something we had discussed doing anyway, just to see the different landscape, so I didn't complain.  Much.

At first the scenery didn't change too drastically, but the traffic thinned out.

Then the landscape started changing and it started to feel like there was hardly anyone on the road.

Then we found lots and lots of vineyards.

Once I realized what direction we were headed, and where that meant we were going to end up, I texted Susan since she lives near Pismo Beach.  We had discussed meeting up at some point in my planning, then tabled it when we decided not to drive the coast.  Well, now we're on the road to the coast and hitting Pismo Beach about lunchtime!  She was fortunately home and willing to drop everything and meet us for a meal.  She suggested a family friendly restaurant and we headed that way.

It's not always easy to find somewhere that Daniel will eat, but Susan was up to the task and we had a nice meal.  It was great to final take the virtual out of a hug and see her for realz!

We got back on the road and enjoyed the lovely drive along the coast.

Oh, and we found this too:

If you can pass that without singing, you're a stronger person than I am.

We started heading inland again toward LA and our final destination, Anaheim.  Traffic began to build until we were in the standard "slow and go" stuff.  I learned something in that traffic.  Apparently, it is the norm for motorcycle riders to "split the lanes" and drive along the space between the slower moving traffic lanes.  Totally freaked me out to have a vehicle shoot past me in slow moving traffic.  Since it didn't just happen once or twice, but dozens of times, I'm assuming this is an accepted practice in that area.  Be prepared if you are driving that the motorcycles don't stick to the lanes!  Anyway, we made our way around LA and we saw the Hollywood sign, but couldn't get a good picture of it.  I did snap this:

I thought that was pretty cool to see.  Eventually, we got to our exit.

YAY!  It says "Disneyland" on the sign!!!  (Yeah, it doesn't take much to thrill me.)

Even better:

We headed to Downtown Disney for dinner.  Not only were we hungry, but I also wanted to be on Disney property for a minute.  There is something about seeing the sign that makes me want it NOW!

We parked in the Downtown Disney lot and found the Earl of Sandwich.

That's always a safe bet for us because they have either grilled cheese or pb&j for Daniel.  While we were eating, we saw one of the Disney cats.

The cat was fine with the people until the kid in the picture tried to walk up and pet it.  Then it dashed under the stage.  It was obviously close enough to dark that it was ready to prowl, but it hadn't waited long enough for the people to thin out yet.

We finished eating and then headed around the block to our hotel.  The Holiday Inn on South Walnut.  Our room was clean and overlooked the splash zone play area.  We could see some of the taller points of attractions at Disneyland in the distance.  Tired, but happy, we called it a night and settled in.