After a longer than expected drive, from Death Valley instead of the intended Bishop, we arrive into Yosemite National Park via the Toiga Pass; a beautiful drive at nearly 10,000 ft elevation. We pass through toluene meadows and see lots of rock climbers on the way. We kinda rushed this part as we wanted to get to our 'first come first served' campsite that usually sells out at 8.30am...It was 4.30pm on a Friday when we arrived!! Chances were very slim, but we had luck on our side :) woo hoo. Someone's friends hadn't shown up and the office was about to close so we got Site 29 at Camp 4. We had to park the car in the carpark (as it was a tent only site) and haul our stuff back and fourth car to tent, car to tent. There's a major black bear problem in the area which meant ALL toiletries and food had to be out of car and tent, and locked away in a food locker. We even had to sign a declaration to say we'd done it, as the bears can wreck your car if the smell food, or get themselves stuck in it too.
(Doesn't help that our site was next to the bins, if the bear comes, guess who he gona get first!!!) so hadn't really any plans for the evening, so we just hoped on the shuttle bus to the info centre and made some plans for the next day. We did a walk to lower Yosemite falls, but no water, being summer it had all dried up. Kenny, god love him, was a bit homesick so vowed as soon as we could to get wifi to get him talking to them all. But tonight we had our usual wraps dinner, but spiced it up with a wee bottle of wine to help it go down a bit better :) Bed early enough for a packed day tomorrow.

We were supposed to go to a Yosemite talk in morning (but even though we wake up at like 7 and the talk isn't until 8.30, we can't prise ourselves from the sleeping bags as we have eventually got ourselves warm and cosy!) then a camera walk. This consisted of a photographer from Ansel Adams gallery taking us to Cook meadow and showing us a few good shots, a few new ways to use the camera and some interpretation of photos he had taken. Pretty interesting, sometime different for a Saturday morning. Got ourselves some tea and coffee, the daily essential, and then started our hiking. We got on the shuttle bus, which took us to the John Muir trailhead, and from there we hiked to Vernal Falls. Very beautiful waterfall, into a freezing cold pool that some crazy people were jumping from a good height into; we just went to the top and admired the views. Unfortunately the hike wasn't the easiest; not too physically demanding, more so it started to rain making each and every step a danger zone. If you didn't watch where you were going every single step, you'd end up face first in the dirt or a big rock. Luckily we escaped this today. And made it down in one piece, although the rain was getting heavier. Walked to curry village abs treated ourselves to some goodies; a piece of marble cake and a piece of chocolate cake and Kenny got some stinking beef jerky (I hate the stuff) love a wee treat every now and then. The rain had turned into more if a storm, completely bucketing down, so the buses were crammed and you just stepped in and our if puddles everywhere. So instead of going back to the tent, we hopped on the El Capitan (one of the famous rock faces) bus to stay out if the rain for half an hour. Got back to campsite at 5.30 and stayed in the car until 8.30pm, absolutely pissing down. The guys at our site had started digging trenches to let the water drain thankfully so tent was dry. Kenny was soaked tho trying to do his part. What an evening!!
Had dinner in the car, all the while time crapping myself that a bear would come pay us a visit. Thankfully no bears and a dry night in the tent :)

The next day we headed to Mariposa grove, which has giant sequoia trees. They are soo huge, both in height and width, it's unbelievable. Their tactics for survival are great;
A) a lot if their width is sponges material that can be burnt away leaving the hardwood untouched and the tree alive
B) Their branches don't start until high up on the tree making it more difficult to catch fire
They are just two that I can remember... Through the grove we met the California tree, a tree with a big whole in it that you could fit a small car through,
Big Grizzly, one of the biggest trees they had
Faithful couple; a tree that had growth two stems about 10m from the base
Clothespin, looked like a clothes peg
Fallen tunnel, technically the bigger and better California tree but it had fallen a few years back (we hiked for about an hour to see this tree as we thought it was still standing!!)
We visited the museum, tiny but say all the different types if cones released by the trees; the sugar pine was the biggest, at least two hand lengths tall. (If one if those hit you from height, you'd be knocked out!) We thought the grove would take an hour; took us three or four. So on the way back we just made a couple of stops. Glacier Point had amazing views of Half done, Yosemite falls, Vernal falls, Nevada falls, absolutely beautiful, but freezing!!
On the way back saw great views of El Capitan. And so ends another day. That least was thankfully less eventful than the previous, early night ready for our big drive the next day.