Day 33-35: Yosemite National Park, California

After our experience at Sequioa, we called Yosemite for information before we lost cell service again. We were staying at Hodgdon Meadow Campgrounds in the park, but it was one of the campgrounds that were on the outskirts of the park. We made these reservations 2 weeks ago and this was the only site that had availability and we took the last one! The park ranger informed us the roads were open to get to Hodgdon Meadow, but the most direct road to Yosemite's Visitor Center is Big Oak Flat Road which is currently closed due to winter storm damage. However, it was opening up the 2nd day we would be there! Whoopee! It would only take us 35 mins instead of having to go around for 3 hours.

Hodgdon Meadow Campground was bare bones. There were no hookups and no showers. Luckily the bathrooms were flush toilets! Bears are frequently seen at the campgrounds, so there are huge bear lockers on each site for you to store any food if you were tent camping. Lucky for us, we had an RV so we didn't need to use the lockers.

We spent the first day there just enjoying the campgrounds. We biked up to the ranger station and Ariadne had fun rolling the huge wood pieces around and chasing squirrels out of our campsite.

The second day we headed to the Visitor Center. The waterfalls were huge due to the snow melting. In the summer it is just a trickle. We hiked the Lower Yosemite Falls trail. As we got closer, you could feel the mist from the waterfall. We walked across a bridge to the other side of the waterfall to see snow still all over the ground. It was strange to be in shorts with snow covering the ground all around you.

After our hike, we went back to our RV and got our bikes. We bikes to Half Dome Village to get a great view of the Half Dome. Biking along the Meadows, you could see El Capitan. We parked our bikes and hiked to Happy Isles where you were supposed to be able to walk in the streams. But, because of the insane amount of snow in the West this year, the stream was too high and strong for anyone to safely get in.

The 3 mile bike ride was amazing! We can't believe Ariadne biked the whole way! As we were putting our bikes back on the RV, a deer walked across the parking lot to go graze in the Meadows.