Yosemite

After Zion we were faced with a couple hundred miles of the Nevada desert before reaching Yosemite, there is nothing that will make you question the mechanical dependability of the vehicle your driving than facing a sign in Nevada that says “Next Services 150 Miles”. We decided to take the “Extraterrestrial Highway” across the desert (being that it not only sounded cool but also made the most logistical sense), I recommended that we stop and make some aluminum foil hats to protect us from the aliens but Tina deemed foil hats both unnecessary and unfashionable, luckily we had no “encounters”. The E.T. Highway is just miles and miles of nothing but cows, sand, and a closed hotel called the Alie-INN, that’s pretty much it.

The "E.T. Highway"...

Tina trying to catch a ride...

150 miles of nothing... probably the longest stretch yet.

Yosemite was pretty exciting and brought on a new high and a new slow for the trip, we hit just under 10,000 feet elevation crossing Tioga Pass, and getting there took several miles driving in second gear. I was complaining about having to downshift to third going up hills in the past, well that was before Tioga Pass, second gear and contemplating first on several occasions. I’m not sure what the incline percentage of Tioga is but coupled with 10,000 feet elevations it gave Charlie all he could handle, I got tired of pulling into turn outs every ¼ of a mile because they made us lose our momentum (which is crucial in a Bus), so by the time we reached the top Charlie was looking like the pace car at the Daytona 500, but we did make it! Eventually…
Yosemite was amazing, Tina thinks it’s the most beautiful place so far, so I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Entering Yosemite from the East Entrance

Freezing at almost 10,000 feet elevation

Almost to the top...

What a view

More Yosemite beauty

A waterfall in Yosemite Valley

Tina and Yosemite Valley

A bear that Tina was so happy to get a picture of...

We didn’t get to stay the night in Yosemite because they had over half the campgrounds closed due to a late snow, but on the way out we stopped and saw some of the Giant Sequoias. And theses are some amazing trees, they are immune to fire, bugs and disease, grow 30 feet in diameter and have been known to live over 3000 years. The only reason a sequoia dies is because the mountain wears out around its roots and the tree falls over, otherwise they would pretty much live forever. Here is a couple of our Favorites…

They get up to 30 feet in diameter

These things are huge

This is called the "Grizzly Giant"

In the fifties you could drive through this one