Our hotel was an hour west of the park, and the next morning was overcast and drizzling, but it was still a lovely drive. We had already seen several waterfalls by the time we reached the Yosemite Gates and the Arched Rock entrance. (We lost count at 22 waterfalls for the day!)
Our first stop was at the Bridal Veil Falls trailhead, mostly because of this view! El Capitan welcomed us to Yosemite right away.
After admiring El Capitan, we headed off into the woods to the falls. We saw a raging creek and humongous trees amongst a backdrop of roaring waterfalls and mist that covered most of the trail.
At least we felt safe with our Jedi bodyguards. The falls were impressive and easy to get to. I guess our silver lining with the weather was that it may have kept some visitors away, so we had this trail almost to ourselves.
We piled back into the car to find the visitor's center. The downside to visiting during the off-season was the construction that caused a few unexpected detours. On our winding walk, we did stumble across this old cemetery, which was pretty neat though.
Eventually, we did find the museum and visitor's center, which was worth a stop.
The kids chillaxing with John Muir in the Yosemite Valley.
From there it was a short hike to Yosemite Falls. Unfortunately, from this vantage point, we could only see the lower falls. Notice Owen hiding and shooting bad guys in the first picture. The boy is obsessed!
On the walk to the lodge, we finally saw the upper and lower falls together. Breathtaking!
By this time we were ready for lunch, but the lodge's lobby was overflowing with people and their packed lunches. (Guess the tour buses finally arrived.) We discovered that there wasn't really any dry place to eat our lunch, so we ended up doing so in our car! The rain was really coming down, but we decided to try one more hike before calling it a day. At least being in our car allowed me to realize that we had a poncho and umbrella at our disposal! So, on to Mirror Lake!
The kids really were troopers! Sure, there were complaints of squishy shoes and soaked gloves, and the hike was longer than anticipated (because we parked in the wrong place), but they soldiered on for the most part. Hadley did hitch a ride on Dad's shoulders quite a bit, but we still made it!
Mirror Lake itself was a little disappointing, but it was supposed to have an incredible view of Half Dome. Unfortunately, all we saw by this point were clouds. We took that as our sign to head out.
Owen and I opted to try the "mud trail", which we thought paralleled the paved road back to the shuttle stop. Here's why we called it the mud trail. So much standing water!
We overshot the shuttle stop by a ways, but we did find this cool respite from the rain! Yosemite was lovely, but we'll have to come back when we aren't thoroughly drenched and socked in the whole time!
The kids spent the whole ride back to the hotel looking forward to a warm bath and cozy PJs. (We made that happen, called in for takeout, and dried some of our sopping wet clothes in the hotel dryer.) The kids love a good hotel room! Owen even helped Hadley to read some of her books at each hotel, which was priceless.
The next day we headed north and then east on I-80 back to Nevada. We saw a ton of snow around the Lake Tahoe area. It seems California has just about every type of climate within its borders!
We had a tasty Shawarmageddon lunch in Reno on the banks of the Truckee River. We just had to eat there because of the name.
And pressed onward to our Winnemucca hotel and pool. Another reason kids love hotels! Not much to say about northern Nevada, except that the whole state seems to resemble an enormous ant hill.
The next day brought us home and back to reality, but we really enjoyed our Spring Break! Thanks California!
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