Bear Country!!!

So on Milton's request, here I go writing my first blog post (other than last night, I am usually half-asleep when John is writing the post). I was actually going to post a little something at the end of "John's" post, but now I am doing the whole thing!

We started off the day in Reno-another sunny and beautiful morning, before driving down to Yosemite. Thankfully we filled up the car in Nevada because the price of regular gas in Cali was a cheap $3.99 (gas in Reno was around $3.13). The drive into the East entrance was as usually beautiful, but littered with speeders. The park started posting signs where bears have been recently killed and just on the way in on the Tioga Pass, we saw 4 different signs. Even though we sort of saw a Grizzly in Yellowstone, John was dying to see one with his own eyes. About an hour into our drive through the park, we came around a turn with a car parked on the side of the road, we threw the car in park and jumped out. Sure enough there was a young black bear about 50 yards off the road. The bear was surprisingly brown, not black. There must have been a lot of people confusing the bears in the park for grizzlies due to their brown color because the "Yosemite Brochure" explained that they were in fact the American Black Bear. The sighting only lasted a few seconds and barely aloud us time to snap a picture-John got one off, but the camera focused on some branches-you can see his skillful photography in the slideshow.

During our last visit to Yosemite in October, Yosemite Falls was completely dried up. Thankfully it was still flowing today and it gave us a chance to take a short hike to the lower falls. The water was freezing and crystal clear. A lot of people were swimming in the many pools-I overheard one little girl gleefully tell here mother "I just peed Mom!" as she continued to sit in the water and play with other kids-Ahh...gotta love those campers!

Our next mini-hike was to Bridalveil Falls. At the foot of the falls, we were met with a large rock/boulder field. I knew my knee wouldn't cooperate, so John started the "5-minute" hike up the rocks to take some close pictures of the falls. 30 minutes later John returned-and you judge for yourself if the pictures were worth the time :)

The Mariposa Grove was our last stop in Yosemite and they did not disappoint. The Grizzly Giant was massive and you could barely take it all in at once. We even got to see a deer (and tons of small furry animals).



Tomorrow we head down to Sequoia National Park, Death Valley (maybe) and then Vegas, Baby!

Oh and stay tuned, because since I am a woman and need to use the restroom hourly, I am compiling a list of the "Best and Worst Bathrooms" in our great nation (sorry no pictures).

Lisa and John signing off-not sure if we will be able to post tomorrow night since we will be out on the town, but we should be able to post from the Grand Canyon on Saturday.

P.S. Just because we found ourselves passingup some picture spots, here are the photos from our first time in Yosemite, last October.