Traveller’s Log: Yosemite

What an interesting shape for a mountain..looks like an eagle to me but they call it the “half dome”. It’s one of the peaks at the Yosemite National Park in California.
So how did I reach there…well it was a pretty sunny weekend and I have a friend who had already been there 3 times before and still wouldn’t mind going again :-). So she and I started on the Saturday morning. Reached that place after having Garlic Icecream on the way – yes you read it right – it is garlic! There’s this place called Gilroy on the way which you can smell from far off due to it’s garlic farms. My friend had passed several times from there and was fascinated by the boards with Garlic Icecream written on them but had never tried it. So we stopped there for a while and had the garlic-vanila icecream – which was not that bad but I don’t think either of us is going to have it ever again :-).

We continued on the way and I saw an interesting waterbody on the way. Don’t know what it was. Here’s a picture.
We also crossed a lot of fields, orchards on the way. I even saw Pistachio orchards along with Strawberry and cherry farms! But didn’t have the time to stop and admire all that. May be some other time.

After all this, I started feeling sleepy while my friend was still as alert and fresh as ever! I think she can earn some bucks by endorsing some energy drink (Though she is of the opinion that she might have been a driver by profession in her previous birth and it has nothing to do with any energy drink)
So in this way – me half asleep and she driving while listening to some music, we reached Yosemite. This time we’d reached that entrance, which she had exited from in her previous trips. So to explore from that side was a new thing for her as well.

We paid the entrance charges, got the map and then after dilly-dallying about seeing a point of interest there, finally decided to go ahead and see the other points. So armed with the map and her previous experiences, we started towards the Glacier Point from the Pioneer Yosemite History Center. It was a beautiful way and we got to see a lot of waterfalls (the snow was melting!) and also unmelted snow at some places in June!

We stopped of course, in between for photo opportunities and one place is speacially memorable because we sat there with our feet in the chilled water from the stream, having some sandwiches that D had brought along.
So with a lot of scenic views and a few adventures, we completed our journey of Yosemite and headed back home. Since we hadn’t had a proper lunch and didn’t have time either for a proper dinner due to it being quite late (the restaurants getting closed at 8:30 to 9:00 PM), so D got some chinese food “to go” at a city en-route. While I had mine in the car itself (noodles), poor girl kept on driving as it was getting late and she had to report for work the next day (yes, even on a Sunday!).
Thus came our journey to an end, with she dropping me at my hotel and then going to her home. But the memories that we make don’t usually come to an end – do they? So with nice memories and some pics as proof, my first Yosemite trip is stacked, to be revisited whenever I feel like remembering that cool summer Saturday of 2010.

Update – 27/08/2015

Submitting it today after 5 years, in response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Today Was a Good Day.”