Yosemite national park & more
Just had a fabulous week doing touristy things and traveling around northern California. It all started with a day in San Francisco, walking around the shops and sitting in a park by the Museum of Modern Art.
Then a weekend finishing my assignment, which I didn’t manage to get done before James’ arrival, surprise surprise! And a trip south to Carmel and Monterey. Amazing, I love it down there, driving along 17 Mile Drive is fantastic, some beautiful coastline and lots of sun! We stopped in Monterey for lunch and then went to to the Aquarium which was brilliant. Saw lots of weird and wonderful things, the jelly fish were really cool and the sharks, and there were lots of weird ugly looking fish around too. Aww and the sea otters, which I wanted to take home, so cute! We drove down to Carmel and sat on the beach to watch the sunset, as usual Jasper managed to photograph every visible thing (evidence on the Photos page ) and had a great time, and I chilled on the beach watching the waves crashing, it’s so peaceful there, despite the couple of kids who thought it was a good idea to run into the ocean with their clothes on, bless them!
Monday, Jasper went to work and James and I spent the day at Valley Fair mall, I managed to spend $300 on some fabulous clothes from my new favourite store, Torrid. I also bought some more jeans for Ian from GAP and James managed to find some fab stuff too.
Tuesday, Jasper went to a work thing in the mountains, and managed to fall in some poison oak!! Thankfully, the camera was ok and Jasper just had an itchy arm for a few hours. James and I had quite a relaxing day, we drove to Milpitas and got a Noah’s (best deli sandwiches in the world!) and sat in Ed Levin County Park for lunch. Ed Levin is a beautiful place, lots of hills about and a nice quiet lake, another nice place to go and think.
Wednesday was our first day of our 5 days straight with Potts being off work, so at last time to relax after JavaOne. We spent the day relaxing and planning our trip to Yosemite, booked a hotel for Thursday night and had an early night.
Thursday morning we set off at about 8.30am and headed for Yosemite, after a couple of hours on the freeway we stopped at a ‘gas’ station to fill up and bought a packet of crisps that had so much dust on them you could hardly read the label. Next stretch was mountain roads, climbing to 6000 feet before we reached our destination a town in the mountains call Groveland, just a short distance from the gates to Yosemite. It was amazing driving up the mountains, if a little scary at times, trying to maneuver a bus sized car around narrow unbarriered roads with a sheer drop next to you was not much fun for any of us! We arrived at the hotel in a town the size of Grosvenor Road, and checked in, everyone was very chatty and friendly, and quite local!! We checked out the rooms, which were very quaint, if that’s the right word! (pokey!!), headed back to the car and drove to Yosemite itself. It was amazing, huge mountains, we were already about 8000 feet up and the peaks towered above us. There were huge waterfalls and some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever come across. I remember being awe struck the first time I went to Scotland, driving through all the highlands, but this was something else! We spent most of the day driving through the park and stopping at all the vista points so Jasper could take pics and we could admire the glorious views. We had stopped at a supermarket just before our huge climb up the mountains to Groveland and bought a cooler and some supplies. So had rolls and cheese etc to make sarnies for lunch. We headed back to the hotel before sunset and had a meal there. We popped up to our rooms and chatted for a bit, had quite a laugh talking about old schools etc, then Jasper and I went to sleep. Well technically, Jasper fell asleep half an hour before we stopped talking, but hey ho. James decided he couldn’t go to bed that early and headed over the saloon across the road and made friends with the locals!! Needless to say he was feeling a bit worse for wear on Friday morning!
Friday we got up and had pancakes for breakfast at the hotel (very odd idea if you ask me!) and hit the road again, driving all the way through Yosemite and out the other side. We went to Mono Lake, a huge salt lake close to the Nevada border. It was massive and in the middle of desert, very hot but worth the drive. From there we headed north east slightly to a town called Bodie. Bodie is a ghost town, formerly mined for gold in the 1800’s. The town is miles from anything else and the only way to get to it is down a 10 mile dirt track. The town used to be inhabited by 10,000 people in 1879 and now is only visited by tourists and sand rats (some of the cutest creatures on earth!). It is bizarre to think that people just left it, leaving behind belongings etc.The mine there closed in 1916 and by the 1930’s all the residents had left. It was really interesting and quite eerie, and bloody hot might I add! It must have been a good 38 degrees, and all of us got a bit sunburned. After Bodie, came the drive home, it took us about 5 hours to get back, the first part of which was trecking back over the mountains, this time reaching 11,000 feet above sea level!! Again we stopped quite a bit to admire the amazing views. Then back on the freeway and home.
It was nice to get home and be able to sleep in our own bed. But we had a fabulous time, I would certainly recommend it to anyone! Especially at this time of year, when it’s not quite so busy and there is still plenty of snow about to make the views even more spectacular. I wouldn’t mind going back myself actually at some point.
Saturday we decided we would have a relaxing day and just spent some time at home chilling out and popped out for lunch, sat in Ed Levin County Park again and had a BK!
Sunday we went into San Francisco again, tried to get on a boat to Alcatraz, but they were all booked up, so Potts and I will have to go again in a few weeks or so. We went to Pier 39 though and saw all the sealions, quite an amazing site, and very bizarre that they just decided to take up residence there. We popped in and out of touristy shops and then went on a drive down Lombard street which was cool. After that we drove to San Francisco Zoo, we arrived at 5.10pm and just our luck, to follow the trend of the day, it closed at 5pm! We did see a couple of Zebra though being taken in for the night, which were pretty cool. So again another place for Jasper and I to visit in a few weeks time.
All in all we had a fabulous week, it was really nice to see James and spend some time with him. It was also quite nice to go out without Jasper for the day shopping and being able to come home and surprise him with what I had found. It was great for Jasper to chill out for a few days and relax after all the effort he put in for JavaOne and it was great for him and I to spend some time together enjoying California. It makes it much more bareable here when we can actually go out and explore, rather than just staring at the same four walls all day every day.
The plan is still to come back in October, as I have my exam to take, so looking forward to catching up with everyone then.
Uni work is going well, only one assignment left on my Social Sciences course and then I will only be working on my Philosophy course untill October when that finishes. Start my Psychology course in October, which I am really looking forward to.
Other than that Potts and I are blissfully happy and loving being a married couple!
Take care guys
Love ya
xxx