This was one of my favorite days ever! It will go down in my personal history as one of the best days of my life. This beautiful place with some of my favorite people, I loved every minute of it!
After a brief stop to admire the wonder that is El Capitan (so huge it looks as if it kisses the sky above). We drove over to Tenaya Lake, located between Yosemite Valley and Tuolumne Meadows. This beautiful lake is a little piece of heaven on earth!
A relaxing day on the beach was exactly what we all needed after our brutal/long (but amazing) first day in Yosemite. The water was crystal blue, but ice cold! Thankfully I remembered to grab my tube out of the RV (I love the water, but can’t stand the cold... that’s why I bought a wetsuit for the Narrows hike in Zion, LOL). We had all packed snacks and after spending some time in the water we enjoyed a picnic in the shade. Gisela brought a bottle of champagne and we toasted to friendship on the beach!
Before heading back we drove a little further up Tioga Pass Road to Tuolumne Meadows. It was a big open field surrounded by mountains with some beautiful yellow and purple wild flowers. There were black storm clouds gathering in the distance. Half of the sky over the meadow was clear and the other half was dark. It looked pretty crazy/cool!
On our way back we stopped at Olmsted Point and admired the view for a bit. There was a huge black raven sitting on a ledge at the lookout point. He was acting really weird. We weren’t sure if he was injured or if he was used to people feeding him, but he just sat there looking at us. It was neat to see one up close like that. He was actually pretty beautiful. So black & shiny!
Next we dove over to Merced Grove which is one of the three Sequioa groves in Yosemite. I honestly thought it was Mariposa Grove we were driving to (which is the biggest of the three groves), but this was a short hike and we got to see a Sequioa AND a dear AND a bear so it turned out to be a happy accident!
After another long, but amazing day it was time to get some rest!