Yosemite Has Bears and BEER!

In 1997, The Turk and I went to Yosemite for our 3 day honeymoon.  Yosemite is my favorite National Park. But I haven't visited all of them yet. We ended our California vacation with four days in Yosemite, staying in a Curry Village canvas tent. Our timing was pretty perfect: beautiful sunny spring weather, melting snow created full waterfalls, it was early enough to miss the crowds but late enough for the opening of the road to Glacier Point.

looking down at Yosemite Valley, El Capitan on left, Bridalveil Falls on right. We hiked up to Artist Point to take this.

We noticed a few changes from our last visit 11 years ago. The most popular hikes are more clearly restricted to prevent wandering too close to dangerous waterfalls, or too far into delicate forest floors.  The restaurants serve a broader choice of food, though still carb-heavy. There are now full service bars with craft beer available in different locations - at high prices. The park bus service is more convenient than before. 

Turk finds a friend

Bridal Veil Falls

Half Dome at sunset

And the confusing change, all lodging and restaurant names have been changed. This will hopefully be reversed when a pending court case is resolved. The previous concessionaire, Delaware North lost their concession contract in 2016. They filed a lawsuit over the bidding process and took with them the Half Dome logo, the names of the lodges and campsites, and even the phrase: Yosemite National Park.  They priced the value of these names and logos at a whopping $51 million.  The new concessionaire was not required to purchase these and the Federal government is now entangled in a law suit to regain ownership of the names and logos at a reasonable rate.  So the big change we saw was the result of $1.7 million in sign replacements and the use of unfamiliar names for familiar locations. Example: Curry Village is now Half Dome Village.

Our tent neighbors at Curry Village

Mattress was 3 inches thick. We had one outlet, one light bulb, and heat!

Near our tent, we noticed huge multi-story rocks and the remains of home foundations. Hmm. The more we looked, the more we realized that these rocks were older and recent rock falls from the granite cliffs looking down on our tent.  The tent village, and additional homes, used to go much closer to the rock walls. But rock falls destroyed those structures.  People have died as a result of rock falls as recently as 2017.

fireplace remains amid fallen rocks

these fallen rocks are not small

feeling small

The most challenging hike was on day 1 to Vernal and Nevada Falls via the mist Trail. The full hike is a 2000ft climb to a total height of almost 6000ft, over 6 miles round trip. It took 6 hours and was fun, challenging, energizing, beautiful and, near the waterfalls, very wet!

Looking down Vernal Falls

The real challenge was walking down the John Muir Trail, a longer but less steep trail. Our knees were screaming as we paced ourselves. We were happy to see good beer available at the end of the hike.

WHEW!

fresh made pizza!

Another high hike was to Sentinel Dome. We drove most of the way, and hiked the actual dome. I think next time, we'll hike beyond the dome to Glacier Point as it looks quite do'able and view worthy.

at time of Sentinel Dome

Our wandering along Yosemite Valley gave us amazing views UP the granite walls. We always saw rock climbers somewhere. Sadly, within a few weeks of leaving, those granite walls took the lives of 3 climbers, one from Half Dome. 

see climbers mid photo

closer view of them sorting ropes

Yosemite Falls

Indian hut made of wood bark

dogwoods at Ahwhanee Hotel

Ahwanhee's fireplace, topped by antique Turkish runner

sneaking up on El Capitan

Turk enjoying the Merced River

one way to identify your bike from the others!

some views of Half Dome

looking across the meadow in Yosemite Valley

Cowboys, Gold, and Wine....not beans!

I have never spent any time in California gold country, but have considered going there.  The Turk loves cowboys  (in Turkish, it sounds like COOBOYS) and apparently this is true for most Turks of his era since their summer evenings were often spent sitting in the park watching John Wayne movies.  Combining gold and cooboys, and the added vineyards requirement, equals going to Sonora.

We stayed at a cute B&B in Sonora, Bradford Place Inn, owned by a couple who used to live in Silicon Valley.  We enjoyed chatting with them and eating their tasty breakfasts.

eggs benedict

skillet scramble

We soon realized there was much more to experience in the area than we expected. Jamestown was founded as a result of the gold rush in Tuolumne County and is an old cowboy town that highlights their railroad history and current winery focus. the State Park: Railtown 1897 is located there and its vintage railroads have been used in movies and TV shows since the 1920's. Bonanza, High Noon, Gunsmoke, The Virginian (with Gary Cooper, Walter Huston), Back to the Future, and even Petticoat Junction used scenes and trains from this park.

We walked past old buildings, and then trains, train pieces and train parts!

looking a bit rundown..but probably what it looked like 

a street of old buildings

the roundhouse - where trains maintained

turntable so train engine goes into the right bay of roundhouse

many many extra train wheels

working water tower for steam engines

original coach interior

engine being worked on

train workshop 

the Jamestown Train Station

 Back in Sonora, we entered an old storefront converted to a bookstore. Inside was a beautiful hand carved bar - for serving ice cream! - and a secret passage down to the basement.  We found out the basement used to be where a bank put its vault.  As we kept walking deeper into the basement, we were really going back in time to a gold mine tunnel.

Cold beer, knives, guns and ammo!!

ice cream BAR

Walking around Sonora, we passed a bar/retail store. I looked in and saw people sitting around the bar, but then I noticed that they also sell ammo, hunting gear....  And I thought - What could go wrong selling ammo in a bar!

Bank Vault in Sonora bookstore basement

We visited the big trees of Calaveras Big Trees State Park. My photos got lost, but the hike through the trees was beautiful and the trees were inspiring. We saw the fallen Tunnel Tree, also knows as the Pioneer Cabin Tree that has been attracting tourists since 1800's. this tree fell on my birthday 2017 during a driving rain storm. 

giant Sequoias

Calaveras Sequoias

Sequoia stump

from this standing thousand+ year old tree

to this from flooding rains, 2017

Of course we also had to try some wine.  The Lodi area is really coming into its own. This old wine region was originally focused on high production, low cost wines with no promotion of the region, or even the grape.  Now the Lodi region is being marketed and in addition to newer vineyards, the old zinfandel vines approaching 100 years old are highlighted.  We picked Ironstone Winery for the location, and the beauty of its winery.  The spring gardens were stunning...but my pics were lost.

We went over to the Reserve Wines bar and enjoyed tasting some old vine zins, delicious red blends, while talking with visitors and locals and a fun wine expert. Yes, we joined the wine club!

barrels of spring flowers everywhere

entrance walkway with hidden buildings around for tastings, restaurants, museum, event venus

Loved the old truck

in the great room/tasting room - massive fireplace

 We tasted more than just grapes. We also tasted apples!  This region is known for their apples.  Before heading down the road to Yosemite, we stopped at Indigeny, an apple cider and apple brandy distillery. They have more than 25,000 apple trees, 51 varieties. So their ciders are unique and delicious and came with us to Yosemite!