Dag 5: Yosemite

83 degrees, sunny

Rise and shine! For the first time since or arrival in the States we were able to sleep in. The Jetlag wasn’t too bad, but it did make us wake up early every day. But not today, 8:30 am we came strumbling out of our beds. We had plenty of time though, since we had to check in at 10 am at the Rangers office. We didn’t have the opportunity for that last night, since we had a late arrival and the ranger was already on his round. Yes his round. He does rounds every night at the campsites to check for bears! We also have to make quite a few precaustions like: lock all our food behind cabinets, close the windows to avoids smells getting out, don’t leave food unsuporvised etc. Oh and yes, we have rangers. Awesome. Rangers. We got to have a picture with one of them, although that’s probably weird, but we don’t care, we’ll ask later.

Anyway, after checking in we deciced to take the shuttle bus and have a round around the valley! The shuttle goes by every 10 to 15 minutes at several prime spots. We decided to hop off at Lower Yosemite Falls to take the trail to this giant waterfall! I’m not sure, but I believe it is 3 to 4 times higher then the Niagara Falls. It was a spectaculair sight. This trail was quite short, I think around ¾ of a mile, so we decided to do the Valley Loop Trail wich brings us around prima spots in the valley. We had an amazing view of ‘Half Dome’ with a giant field in front of it, wich made it look all the more impressive. After that we continued the Valley Loop Trail to ‘Mirror Lake’. Wich isn’t that much of a lake to be honest, but it does give a great reflection of the mountains beside it. Awesome. In conclusion, Yosemite National Park must be one of the prettiest things I’ve seen so far. The combination of giant trees, huge cliffs and the valley is absolutely spectacular! It has some similarities to the Valley of the Verdon, but it is way more massive! We ended our day at the pool following up with a nice shower(wich was needed, hot and sweety day).

Guys seriously, American people are awesome. They greed like this even when passing by: Hey man how are you doing? I came to learn that they really don’t expect an answer when they say that. See the following example of our tour guide yesterday at the whale whatching tour. He introduced himself like this: “Hey guys, how are you all doing today my name is Chase we are gonna have so much fun today and see a lot whales, dolphins, sealions and maybe even sharks are you guys excited i’m so excited the weather is great huh do you have any questions okay then lets get goings shall we! Note that I didn’t use any question marks because there really weren’t one. That part took him about 5 seconds. Nevertheless though everyone is very helpfull and interested. Another example: I asked one of our American neighbours if they kept their food in a bear locker or in the RV. 10 seconds later 5 more (American) people showed up in the discussion and before I knew it we we’re talking about all sorts of things. Awesome.