Yosemite National Park

 Hi Friends.

On Sunday, July 18th, we hopped out of bed at 5:00AM, packed the car, ate a quick breakfast, and left for Yosemite National Park at 6:00 AM so we could get to the park before the hordes of tourists showed up.

Yosemite has a reservation system now to reduce the number of people in the park that requires one to go online and apply for a reservation, and once that is accomplished, the reservation has to be printed out for presentation at the entrance gate (they will accept a digital version reluctantly).

The shuttle buses are still not operating so they have to cut down on the number of vehicles allowed in or become overwhelmed with too many vehicles by mid-morning. The visitor's centers are also not open to the public yet and a small kiosk has been set up in the parking lot at only two locations, Yosemite Valley and Lambert Dome, maned only to pass out brochures and answer questions.

We entered the park through Tioga Pass (11,523 ft.), from the village of Lee Vining (6,837 ft.) on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. That nearly 5,000-foot climb up the mountain to the entrance station is just breathtaking. 

The first big attraction from the Eastern entrance is Lambert Dome, a huge granite dome extending above the tree line and gleaming in the sun.

From there we drove past Tuolumne Meadows but didn't get out to hike, because cute puppies like me, are not allowed on the trails there. There are only a few places in the park where dogs are allowed to accompany their human families on a nice hike.

From there we stopped at Olmstead point again to get some more pictures of Yosemite Valley from the eastern side.

That's Half Dome sticking up so prominently.

Next, we headed to Tuolumne Grove, one of the places I could hike with Mom and Dad, and explore the Giant Sequoia trees that grow there. On the way, though we came upon something we had not anticipated. 

There had been a wildfire along the Tioga Road near Porcupine Flat four days before we got there, and there we several firefighters near the road monitoring the still-smoldering remnants of the forest that had been devastated by the fire which had been started by a lightning strike.

We finally got to take a hike at the grove of Giant Sequoia trees and really enjoyed the two-mile walk down into the valley, and the hike back up to the parking lot too.

This tree is named Big Red, it is over 300 feet tall and about 28 feet around.

Here's one so big, they built a road so you could drive a small car through it.

 These trees are gigantic, some of them 300 feet high, as big as 25 feet wide at the base, and some are 300 to 500 years old. 

From there, we went on to Yosemite Valley and captured some of the grandeur of the iconic landmarks that reside there.

Tomorrow we will be coming back to the National Park to explore more of Yosemite Valley😊.