Day 3

Departure City:  Mariposa, CA (KOA)

When morning hit, I was extremely ready to start today’s adventure. Why you ask…well today was YOSEMITE day. I couldn’t wait to see the waterfalls and scenery …but NOTHING could have prepared me for what I saw today. It was nothing less than the most gorgeous scenery I have EVER seen.

We started the morning driving along Highway 140 through the Sierra National Forest. We had no idea what the drive from Mariposa to Yosemite was going to be like, but I can say, I don’t think we were expecting what we saw. We followed along a river bank through the mountains. This picture hardly gives you a true perspective of what we saw.

The morning drive through Sierra National Forest Then we entered Yosemite National Park, and like the drive in the morning, it blew us both away. We were completely speechless. We heard through the grapevine that the rivers and waterfalls were so powerful and so high because of the RECORD breaking snow fall. Well they weren’t kidding. We could hear the rapids over the motor of the cycle and I am pretty sure we saw about 4 or 5 waterfalls, that I’m pretty sure weren’t actually waterfalls.

And then we looked up, and there was El Capitan gleaming in the sun. The granite shown so bright that I had a hard time capturing the beauty of it. I could explain more about this but I’m pretty sure this picture is worth a 1000 words.

The Glorious El Capitan

The next stop took us to Bridalveil Falls. On the walk up to the bottom of the fall both dad and I looked down and there literally was water flowing down the pathway. At the top of the pathway, where you would normally stand, was nothing but a puddle of water.  Talk about a perfect time to visit Yosemite.

Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite

After that fall, we continued our way through the park to Yosemite Village, which is right near the main waterfalls, Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls. I have no words to explain the distant view of the Upper Fall and the close up view of the Lower Fall. The strength of the lower fall was so strong that the “mist” you felt wasn’t really mist…I would call it rain. I had to time my images out because I kept having to wipe the lens.

At the base of Lower Yosemite Fall

From Yosemite, we continued our journey south along Highway 41 to Pismo/Avila Beach through Fresno, CA. Like yesterday, we drove for a good hour through agriculture-ville lined with fruit trees, vegetable plants, and wineries. After that we hit the open plains, filled with nonstop wheat fields and not to mention powerful wind. This continued for a few good hours and of course the GPS took us through a 24 mile windy shortcut (this was a good shortcut) ending in Atascadero, CA. From here, we connected to the 101, which took us to our final destination for the day.

Tomorrow begins our journey north along Highway 1 through Hurst Castle and ending in Santa Cruz. Here are a few more photos of what I can only explain as breathtaking!

Start of day 3

Random waterfall in Yosemite National Forest