Yosemite

We decided to take a quick trip to Yosemite and do some bike riding. As an aside, I have to admit that I live only 4-5 hours from this beautiful spot and had only been there twice - both as day trips, never even spending the night.
We left Tuesday and arrive at the North Gate around 4. I had booked us a room at the historic Wawona hotel, which I thought was in the valley. Duh. It's about 40 miles south and only 10 miles from the South gate. (where you come in from Fresno). We were starting to get a bit grumpy and tired when we finally arrived to find a hotel that is on the National Historic Registry and was built in 1850.

The hotel consists of several buildings that look like the main one here. Our room was in a separate building, which was good because in the "newer" buildings the rooms have a private bath. About half the rooms don't have one at all and you have to go down the hall.
We had wine in the parlor of the main building where a guy was playing the piano and telling stories. It was like going back to another time. He told the tale of when US Grant visited the hotel in 1870, along with Civil War tunes to go along with the stories. It was fun, entertaining and relaxing.
I have to digress a bit here, as when we arrived I realized I had no cell phone reception. Trust me, there is nothing like going a day without phone, internet or TV to recharge your battery.
Wednesday morning we had a yummy buffet breakfast and headed out to the valley. It was supposed to only be 55 that day, but I think it was 65. We had a great morning of riding our bikes all over the Yosemite Valley. I highly recommend this mode of transportation to see it. Bear in mind we were mid-week in late April. This wouldn't be good on a weekend in June. We saw Lower and Upper Yosemite Falls, Half Dome, Mirror Lake, El Capitan, etc. We decided to have lunch at the Ahwanee Hotel, which we knew would be ridiculously expensive, but did it anyway. It was a great experience.
While lunching Pat suggested we hike to the top of Vernal Falls. I was wondering about the hike and he told me he'd done it before in flip flops with a kid on his back. Um, okay, so we rode to the trailhead and locked up our bikes. Long story short, it was 2.5 miles straight up (1000' vertical rise) to the top of the falls. The last part is steep stairs cut into the granite. Oh, plus it's spring and the falls are raging, so we got soaked. I am not complaining. Even thought it was a tortuous journey, it was totally worth it. This is a pic of the falls showing the stairs. The next one is at the top looking down. You can see the narrow steep trail to the left. After we got done with the hike we rode back to our truck and headed for home.All in all we rode over 15 miles and hiked 5 up and down hill. We were pooped but had a great day. I have no idea how to get rid of this underlined text, nor any idea how I did this. Sheesh. Sorry.