Every Vacation MUST Include A Little "Adventure"!

Our second day in San Francisco was to be a very long one.  Our friends had never been to Yosemite National Park and since we were so close, they asked if we would mind making the trip.  We told them, "Sure!  Let's do it!" 

Yosemite is a four hour drive from San Francisco, so we left out hotel at 6 a.m.  Now, when I had previously visited Yosemite, it had been in the spring time of the year.  There was still snow on the ground in places and all of the falls were flowing.  I remember the weather being so pleasant and even actually a little cool; we wore jackets and boots.  At the end of July I wasn't sure what to expect, but thought that since San Francisco was so cool, Yosemite must also be that pleasant.

One must travel up and around mountains to reach the National Park and the scenery on the drive there is phenomenal.  Once we reached the area where we would be parking for the day and got out, it was clear to us that the weather was definitely going to be warmer there...and we had all worn long pants (ugh...) and I had on long sleeves too (double ugh...).  It wasn't long before we all began to peel our layers off and immediately decided that we would not be walking the entire park but instead taking the open-air tram on a two hour tour of the park.

                There were very few waterfalls flowing this time of year, but we found this one!

As we rode around on this tour, it seemed to get hotter...and hotter...and HOTTER!  I must say that we were all pretty good sports about it (most of the time...), but the fact was:  WE WERE MELTING!  Doug had forgotten his sunglasses at the hotel (not sure how he made it...), I had my shirt tied up like Daisy Duke and Robby was wishing for a pocket knife to cut his Nike pants off at the knees...

Since Robby could never get his hands on a pocket knife, he opted to roll his pants up and take his shoes and socks off!

And along with drinking our bottles of water, we took turns pouring it on our heads and down our shirts!

I tried to convince Robby to get out on this stop to take a picture with me but he said his feet would burn since he had his shoes off...Sandra took one with me instead.

By the time our tour was finished we were pretty worn out.  However, not too worn out to stop and see a grove of Giant Sequoias on our way out...

When we decided to stop here, it had cooled down a bit.  But we had NO IDEA what kind of a walk we were in for.  As we hiked DOWNHILL to see the Sequoias, I suppose it never occurred to us that the walk back would be UPHILL (sigh...).  Also, pretty soon into the day, I had taken my contacts out because I apparently was obviously allergic to something (or lots of things...) inside the park.  By the time we made it to see these giant trees, my nose and eyes had begun to water and I could also feel my eyes swelling.  I quickly instructed that all pictures taken of me here NOT be close ups!

After practically CRAWLING out of the Sequoia Grove, we drug ourselves into the car, turned the air conditioner on, pulled our shoes off, ate junk food and headed back to San Francisco.  We arrived back at our hotel at 11 p.m.  It had been a very long day with an "adventure" we would not soon forget.  But HEY!  Every vacation should include a little "adventure"..Don't you think so?!

The next day, our final day in California, would be a relaxing one.  We would be visiting wine country!