Day 15 Yosemite / Fresno

John let me sleep in today.  He was up and in search of coffee about 6:00 and I slept until 7:00.  Glorious!  He even brought me coffee to get me up and going.  We were packed and loaded by 8:00.

John teased me so much yesterday about a hike today that I decided I did in fact want to do a hike.  I chose an easy one - 2 miles round trip to Mirror Lake.  

We met an older couple on the shuttle who were doing the same hike.  It was supposed to be on a paved path.  We took the road to where the trail head was and then were not sure if we were supposed to take the road or the hard packed path.  We took the path.  Turns out the road was the paved path.  The path we took was a horse trail.  It was steeper and more fun, except it was a horse trail.  That means lots and lots of horse dung.  It was a very pretty trail in spite of the smell.

We reached Mirror lake which was really more like Mirror tank, but it did have a very pretty image of the mountains reflected in it.  We tried finding a way over the tank, I mean lake, but it didn’t look very likely until we found a spot with lots of logs and rocks across it.  That older couple caught up with us - they had taken the horse trail too.  We made it across the lake and then John helped the woman across.  She was greatful.  We continued to the road and walked at an easy pace down the hill.  

Soon, we came across two bucks feeding in the grass across the river.  We started taking pictures and crept closer and closer.  John got some really great pictures of them and then I took the camera and got even closer.  I ended up about 15 feet from them!  I watched and took pictures as they crossed the river and bound up the bank.  Wow.  It was an incredible experience!  I talked John’s ear off about it afterwards.

We left the Yosemite Valley headed toward Mariposa Grove to see the redwoods before we left altogether.  Being July 4th, it was crazy crowded with people.  You had to park and take a shuttle and hike in 2 miles.  We were not up for it, especially since we were headed to the world’s largest sequoias tomorrow.  Onward to Fresno, a hotel room, and hopefully a hot tub.

There was a hot tub at the hotel but it was blistering hot outside.  I also have a blister on my foot that decided to get kinda yukky so no swimming right now for me.  Instead we relaxed in the a/c while John did laundry then talked on the phone a while with various people.  For dinner we went to Outback Steakhouse.  Party in my mouth!  It was so good!    

We heard there were going to be fireworks at a waterpark nearby, so we checked it out and set up our chairs to watch the show.  It was fabulous!  When we were leaving however, it was basically a game of chicken just getting onto the road.  At one time I think I saw 5 cars all facing each other.  Additionally, a fire truck came up behind us and we moved over but then this truck almost ran us over trying to scoot into the same lane as the fire truck to get behind it.  Wow.

Happy to have enjoyed the 4th of July with John for the first time.  It was nice.  Happy Independance Day Y’all.