The drive to Yosemite

We left Bishop and drove towards Mono Lake - and decided we may as well stop off at Mammoth Lakes on the way. In the winter, it's a ski resort, complete with all the wooden alpine buildings, and waiters that look like they're snowboarders working in the off season. Lo and behold, there were factory outlets. Mmmmm. So that took a bit of time and we ended up having lunch there (with the snowboarding waiters). We analysed our route for the day and figured it would still work, despite the shopping delay. It was only about 40 minutes from there to Mono Lake (pictured).

Mono Lake is one of the oldest lakes in the US, and is three times as salty as the ocean. It stinks. The weird formations in the photo are called "tufa". They are essentially limestone, but formed underwater, and as the lake level has dropped, they've become visible. The lake is also a haven for migratory birds, and there were some there on their way to South America. If you know me, you'll know that I didn't take too much notice of them.....

From there, we headed off to Yosemite National Park. To get there, we had to cross Tioga Pass, which is the highest highway pass in California, at 9943ft, or 3031m high. Pretty high. It's only open about 4 months a year - the rest of the time, there's too much snow. As we were already at about 6000ft at Mono Lake though, it wasn't too much a climb to get up there, and the Postman Pat van managed it fine - the mail must get through.

The scenery was gorgeous - typical high alpine stuff, lots of pine, beautiful blue lakes, sheer rock faces, great stuff. We stopped at a couple of viewpoints, took lots of photos, and were in awe of Mother Nature for a while.

This is prime black bear territory, so we read up on the etiquette - there are red bear signs around the park where bears have been killed by cars. I imagine they'd make quite a mess of your car.....

Yosemite, being a national park, doesn't have the cheapest accommodation around, but we managed to find somewhere reasonable, so bunked down for the night.