Arriving at Yosemite Valley

We drove for about 4 hours from San Francisco (see more details here) to our hotel near the Yosemite Valley. Before arriving at the hotel, we stopped at a market in the city of Moth to buy everything we needed for the 3 days at YV (breakfast, lunch and dinner). We read in several places that things are expensive inside the park (and they really are), so it was only fair that we use our kitchen to save money, right? We arrived at the hotel at night and prepared our dinner, including a delicious wine from the region. I love this kind of saving… lol.

Our accommodation in Yosemite

We chose to stay at Yosemite View Lodge. This hotel is 5 minutes from the park entrance, but the daily rates are much cheaper than those of the hotels inside the park, so if you are driving and want to save a little, I recommend it!

We stayed in a very large room that had a kitchen, a bathtub in front of the bed, and even a fireplace that we plugged into the wall socket. I found it very cozy, even after realizing that the minibar made an annoying noise every now and then and the water in the shower would suddenly get cold. These are annoying details, but they didn't ruin our stay.

Day 1 – Tuesday (11/29/2016)

We woke up without rushing, had breakfast in the room, got ready and when we got in the car, we saw that we had to fill up a little, because we knew we were going to drive around the park and There is no gas station there. We drove in the opposite direction to the entrance and stopped at the first gas station we found, which was quite expensive compared to the ones we saw on the road. Patience, I recommend filling up beforehand.

We left there towards the park (finally!!!) and were delighted with what we saw, even before stopping at the entrance kiosk to pay the 30 dollar entrance fee (the ticket valid for 7 days). Needless to say, we were super excited about what was to come, right?

Bridalveil Fall

Our first attraction inside the park was the waterfall Bridalveil Fall, which is very close to the entrance. We found a spot for our car among motorhomes and SUVs with big, excited families and took a super short trail to see it. Since it was autumn, we knew we wouldn’t see much water, but it was still worth it…

We got in the car and thought about going to the park information center to get maps and tips, but as soon as we got to one of the main streets, we had to stop to enjoy the view. And we did this at several points along the street… lol. What a beautiful place, guys!

Yosemite Village

After a few stops, we headed to the Yosemite Village, where there is a tourist center, a market, the post office, a museum, etc. We got the tips and maps we wanted, parked the car in one of the park's many parking lots and went to the bus stop to wait for it.

ATTENTION: It is important not to leave any food in the car because bears are capable of breaking into it to get a bag of cookies (or so the signs say). Don't be sloppy!

Shuttle in the park

I thought the bus route inside the park was really cool, because you can get to all the attractions with it. It's like a hop on hop off, you know? You get on and off wherever you want, taking the tour at your own pace.

Vernal Fall

We got off at the stop near the Vernal Fall and we walked for a few hours on a very well-maintained and signposted trail, with breathtaking views (in many ways…). It’s a shame that my camera started to malfunction and the photos didn’t come out so well. Here are some that were saved: anyway:

Mirror Lake

After this trail and eating our sandwiches to recharge our batteries, we took the bus to the trail. Mirror Lake. This trail is much easier than the first one, but the view is not as impressive. I think that maybe if the lake was fuller (spring or summer) we would enjoy it more.

We returned to the car and made a few stops along the way to admire the giant rocks. El Capitan and Half Dome. Unfortunately (or fortunately), no photo can convey what it's like to see all that exuberance in person. Go see it for yourself and then tell me if it's not mouth-watering.

This park definitely made it onto our list of the most impressive places we've ever visited. <3

We arrived at the hotel, cooked our dinner and relaxed with a good wine. How tiring!

Day 2 – Wednesday (11/30/2016)

We left the hotel around 10am and tried to take the road inside the park to the Tuolumne Grove, which is one of the places where you can see the giant sequoias (trees). The main place in the park is the Butterfly Grove, but since it will be closed until 2017 for construction, we had to choose the second most interesting option. When we arrived at the base of the road to the TG, we saw a sign requiring the use of tire chains. Since we didn't have any, we were afraid to go up and turned around. We were sad when we realized we wouldn't be able to see the famous giants, but then it worked out (keep reading...). Phew!

Yosemite Falls

We ended up going to another area of the park, where we saw many deer walking and jumping freely and we took the very quiet and short trail to the Yosemite Falls (there are two). I thought it was worth it!

We quickly stopped by the visitor center and they told us that the road to TG had been closed in the morning because it had snowed, but that at that time we could still go up without any problems. Aaaaand off we went!!! (NOTE: When we passed by the place where we saw the sign, it had actually been turned around…lol) The road to this place is very beautiful, because it is uphill and there are several viewpoints along the way…set aside some time for photos.

Tuolumne Grove

The entrance to the Tuolumne Grove It was covered in snow and that made us even more excited (we became children with everything white)! We stopped the car and went down the trail, which is a long way down (and of course, a long way up) and right away we saw what a giant sequoia was. What a HUGE tree!!! It was also HUGE in height and width of trunk, but I would say that it didn't stand out much in height because the other trees in the park were also very tall, but in width... There are several along the trail, with many explanatory signs (they need fire, people!) and luckily for us, few tourists... lol. Some photos:

We spent a few hours there and then walked slowly down the road to our hotel, once again enjoying the spectacular scenery of the park. I recommend it!

Day 3 – Thursday (12/01/2016)

We had our breakfast in the room, got ready and did the checkout from the hotel. We went to the park again and tried to climb to the Tunnel View, but again we saw those necessary chains signs. We went back to the tourist center to see what else we could do, but given the very time-consuming options (we only had the morning to visit), we thought it best to revisit some places we liked more. In the end, we tried to go back to the Tunnel View road and voila: the sign had been turned and we could climb without chains!!! How lucky 🙂

We went up super happy and man, it was the BEST VIEW IN THE WHOLE PARK! 

We were both impressed and distressed by the fact that we almost missed that view. Just look at this:

Very beautiful, right? The best part is that we continued along that incredible road until we left the park, because it was exactly the route Celo had researched to take us to our next destination – Visalia.

Important tips

Here are some important details about Yosemite Valley that I need to share:

• We had a T-Mobile SIM card and it didn't work at any point inside the park. Other people were using their cell phones inside, so there must be some carrier that has signal, I don't know...
• The bus/shuttle service within the park is free and very efficient. If you have to wait 10 minutes for one, that's a long time.
• Save the ticket entrance to the park because you will need to show it every time you want to enter it. They ask if you are going to visit another National Park as well, because there are tickets promotional if the response is positive.
• There are signs everywhere explaining what to do if you encounter a bear or a cougar inside the park (in the second case, you have to make a lot of noise and attack back – hard to read, I know).

• There are also signs about people who didn't follow the rules and ended up dying or having an accident (It's quite sensationalist, you know? They're everywhere and I hope they serve their purpose...)

• There are families on all the trails, so be patient with the super hyper ultra excited and slow children…lol.
• It is not to feed ANY animal. Obey!!!
• The roads are well maintained and there are low speed limits on all of them, so always respect them. There are even some stretches where slower cars can keep to the right (and you'll see a lot of people taking photos of their cars in motion).
• Don't leave any food in your car (I mentioned this above, but it's always good to reiterate). Bears have been known to attack cars that are parked with food inside.

That's it! It was totally worth it and I definitely want to go back more calmly and with my little ones, but I would like to go back in a motorhome.

On the way to Death Valley

—- This is the end of the text about Yosemite Valley, but if you want to know what we did until Death Valley, keep reading —-

The next place we wanted to visit was the Death Valley, but since the shorter road (via Mammoth Lake) was closed due to snow and the longer road took more than 7 hours by car, we thought it best to make two stops along the way, one in Visalia and another in Lone Pine. I'm a slow driver (Celo's license had expired), so they were just strategic stops, but I'm sure that if Celo had been behind the wheel, they wouldn't have happened...HAHAHA

There is absolutely nothing interesting about either city, so I won't even recommend them here. We stayed in two motels in both cities, Motel 6 and the Dow Villa Motel (this one is cozier), we ate a lot fast food, we bought some stuff on Black Friday (copying the super consumerist Americans, of course) and got ready to visit a completely arid and AWESOME national park! I talked more about it in this post.

Now some photos of these strategic stops, in case you are interested:

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