Yosemite National Park (Part One)

This is late in coming basically because we were too busy enjoying the park and our internet access failed.

We left Tucson last Monday stopping at Barstow CA after driving on parts of old historic Route 66. Clear skies, dry weather, in general great driving weather. We were able to visit a couple older buildings along Route 66 that had seen better days.

We left Barstow early Tuesday morning with the intent of driving along Route 395 north to Mono Lake then cross over into Yosemite using the 120. At least that was the intent. The closer we got the more rain we encountered till about 180 miles away from our turn we passed road signs telling us of the closer of 120 and the pass into Yosemite. Our short drive turned into a much longer one as we had to back track south in order to enter the park from the south gate. This went on for the entire time we were in the park; the road signs showed the route being opened only to find out it was closed after driving all the way from the valley to the point where they close the road. We did pass through Big Meadow; the site of the fire earlier this year. We'll be sharing images of the devastation in a later entry.

We encountered heavy rain as we drove into the park via the south gate and on our way to our hotel and the valley. The rain turned into a blessing as the falls were flowing and the sky had abundant clouds. The falls that had been dry during the summer came alive and stayed that way our entire stay. The clouds stayed for our first full day then petered out.

As we said earlier we were without adequate internet access until today so this is the beginning of our story of our stay in Yosemite National Park. This was our first visit here and we are already making plans for our return. This was also our first trip where we used the 1DsII that had been converted to infrared. We got some beautiful IR images that we'll be sharing in the coming days.

The images included in this post are all from the first day and we have several more days to share so stay tuned for the updates.

Thanks for letting us share and as always we welcome your comments.


Sandy & Don