Yosemite National Park - Day Trip

This past weekend I decided that I was going to take a day and go to Yosemite. The recent government shut down that resulted on closures of all of the National Parks among other things made me stop and think about how easy it is to take the parks for granted when they are always there. It's a little over two hours to drive to Yosemite from where I live so there is really no excuse for not visiting once in a while. I did go a couple of years ago with a nephew and his son and we went to Tuolumne Grove to see the sequoia trees. It was a good day trip but we didn't go on into Yosemite Valley. This trip I decided that I wanted to drive into and see the valley and drive to the park one way and home another to scout for future visits.

It was a beautiful day and I got a chance to take some nice pictures of the Fall colors, some of the landmarks and some deer that were right next to the road. Another thing I took some pictures of was the burn area from this past summer's Rim Fire. I kept thinking over and over that the question isn't, "How did so much burn"? The question, at least in my mind is, "How did they stop the fire from burning it all"? What an amazing effort went into fighting the fire and saving so much that was in its path. My hat certainly goes off to the firefighters. I don't want to put a lot of pictures of the results of the fire here because it doesn't take much to demonstrate the destruction. Here are just a few.

Here is a map that they posted at various locations showing the size of the fire and it's location in relation to the park.

It was a beautiful day that started with a beautiful sunrise at the house.

It was funny while I was driving and walking in Yosemite the same question kept popping up when I saw something or decided to stop and take a picture. The question was, "What would Chase see"? Chase is my grandson who always makes me appreciate things that we see when we hike or even just hang out in the neighborhood, no matter the season and no matter what part of the country they live in. His excitement is contagious and his sister Haley has the same infectious joy. So I tried to make sure that I looked at everything the way that they would look at it if they were there. Here are some of the pictures that I took.

While a day is certainly not enough time to see everything or even a fraction of what the park has to offer it is a good starting point so I can do research based on what I saw and what I would like to see in future visits. It was definitely a day well spent.