The Day Off in Yosemite

After a good night's sleep, I was up at 7:00. I ate my last packages of oatmeal and hot chocolate (no more bananas or granola). Then I was off on Stella in search of three things: a shower, groceries and Wi-Fi. First I stopped at the Yosemite Village Store and restocked my food. I'm sure it was more expensive, but what was I to do? They sort of have the "market" cornered there. Then it was off to the "Housekeeping Camp" for a shower. Besides the shower house and laundry, there are places to stay in the Housekeeping Camp. They pretty much put people everywhere in Yosemite. The shower was free and fabulous! I felt much better after a nice long shower (there was even shampoo and shower gel in the showers)!

I decided to return to my campsite to drop off my groceries into the bear locker (funny thing, when I first got to the camp, I misread the sign on the bear locker to say, "Bears can get into this locker, even if it is locked". What it really said was, "Bears can get into this locker, if it is NOT properly locked").

Then I headed back to the village to find Wi-Fi. First I went to Deegan's Cafe. They had pay Internet, but no Wi-Fi. The employee said there was Wi-Fi at the hotel lobbies. So, I went to Yosemite Lodge. Well, they had Wi-Fi, but you had to be a guest of the lodge. So, no Wi-Fi. I did take the opportunity to charge my phone and call Marie-Claire in France.

After the lodge, I rode over to the trail to Lower Yosemite Falls. The falls were, as you can guess, quite awesome. There were a lot of people there and I discovered that most of them were foreign tourists. I rarely overheard English. I stopped trying to talk to people because they would mostly just smile and not say anything.

On my way back to the camp, I, again, stopped at the Village Store and bought some hummus and cheese to have for lunch on the tortillas I had bought earlier. I returned to camp and ate my lunch. Then I walked over the now, not flooded, trail to the North Pines campground, did some laundry and filled my water containers.

After finishing my "housekeeping" duties, I walked up to Mirror Lake. Mirror Lake is really just part of the river that has been dammed up by rock fall. There were lots of people there playing in the water. Curiously, not too many were swimming. I imagine the water was pretty darn cold due to all the snow melt!

Back at camp, I cooked my dinner (the last of my pasta with olive oil, tomato and avocado), organized everything for the morning departure and hit the sack. Although it would be nice to spend more time in the park, I feel like I got to see a good amount in my short stay.