Summer Vacation Trip - Day 4

Both of us were up very early (0600.  We ate breakfast at the hotel restaurant and departed Fresno at 0700.  Before we planned this trip, the farthest north I expected to drive was to Kings Canyon National Park.  However, my experience of driving from the Owens River Valley to the Central Valley proved that the distances might not be too much to make a “detour” to Yosemite National Park. I was a bit concerned that the entire planet (or, at least, the most populous US state) might have a similar idea because it was so hot (almost 90 degrees in the morning).  Armed with the knowledge that it was unlikely that either of us would be in the area again in the near future, I told Mollie I'd try to take her to get another NPS Passport stamp.  We drove north on CA-41 and made good time to the base of the Sierras.  Since I again anticipated that we’d lose cell phone service for most of the day, I recommended that Mollie contact her mother.  She did so and soon after that we stopped for gas at a little town called Madera (0725).  Soon after, the road changed from four lanes to two.  Fortunately, traffic wasn't too bad on the route until we reached the town of Oakhurst, just south of the park entrance.  There was a huge group of motorcyclists and many other visitors and we slowed almost to a stand-still in places.  I mailed some letters from a town called Fish Camp and then we got back in the conga line that snaked to the south entrance.  It seemed to take forever to get inside the park but we passed the first major attraction (Mariposa Grove) by 0830.  I told Mollie that we'd better hurry to Yosemite Valley to make sure we'd have a place to park for the great views and this turned out to be a wise decision.  Even though we passed up every single potential stop along the 35-mile road, we arrived in Yosemite Village to find that all the parking lots were filled! Even the parking along the Southside drive was packed.  We managed to snag a "30-minute maximum" spot near the Market and walked a short distance to the Visitor Center for Mollie's NPS Passport Stamp.  One funny thing about the day was that there was actually cell service throughout the valley (so much for remote getaway).  Mollie bought several souvenirs (for her family) and I bought her a ball cap.  We saw the Yosemite Falls from that area and looked around a little bit until we walked back to the car.  We then (1200) drove down to the Yosemite Valley Lodge and parked again.  For most of the day, we weren't sure any of the parking spots were "legal" spot but we took our chances.  We ate a light lunch (leftovers) before venturing away from the car.  First, we walked on the Valley Loop Trail towards El Capitan and found rock climbers, campers, Native American log huts and several amazing vistas that "weren't on the tour".  The temperatures were pretty nice (70s most of the day) and we enjoyed seeing the puffy clouds along the rocky ridges above.  The views of the Half Dome and North Dome were stunning, as was the view from the Valley up to Glacier Point.  Mollie got annoyed with me for “walking too close” so I backed off and let her take photos to her heart’s content.  After the nice time we had on the dirt/gravel trails, we walked back towards the Lodge and explored the paved hiking/biking path that provided more views of the terrain and water falls.  Mollie was very impressed by the whirlpools in the Merced River and several "high water mark" signs we encountered.  In the Valley, we encountered a small, heron-looking bird along the water but couldn't figure out what it was.  After walking back to our car, we drove down the Northside Drive and took lots of pictures of El Capitan and Bridalveil Falls.  We'd been warned that there would be a "mass exodus" for the exit in the afternoon so we headed back to the south at around 1330 so we would be able to make stops at places we'd skipped on the way into the park.  Our first attempt was a failure as we found the Bridalveil Falls parking lot full and cars lining the roads for "their turn”.  We gave up that idea and drove up to the Tunnel View, where we got some more good photos.  Mollie saw some people feeding a funny raven and enjoyed the view a lot (she said it was a great highlight, among many others during the day).  We continued to the Glacier Point access road and found it packed as well so didn’t stop.  One thing we didn't want to miss was the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias.  We got lucky when we arrived at the visitor center because a shuttle bus was waiting to take us to the grove.  We'd previously read about a massive reconstruction project at this location and discovered that it had been largely completed.  There were new "encounter stations" and trails and everything looked brand new.  As we got off the bus at the top of the access road (1400), we found that a park ranger was about to give a guided tour of the grove all the way up to the Grizzly Giant.  We tagged along for a little bit but he'd budgeted 1.5 hours (!) for the tour and we didn't have that much time to spend among the trees.  We ended up walking about 3/4 of a mile (to the top of the trail) and saw lots of amazing trees.  Mollie got really upset at me for “leaving her behind” and it took some time for me to get her back to a happy place.  It kept looking like rain but held off the whole time we were there.  We got back on the shuttle at about 1445 and made it down to our car quickly.  Our trip down the mountain wasn't too hard and we had a fun time playing a game where we imagined each of the states as students in High School (I made Mollie laugh a lot with my imaginary characters).  Mollie had seen a place for ice cream called Robert Frosty's in Coarsegold and I stopped there so she could treat me to a sundae.  We used CA-41 all the way to CA-180 and then switched to CA-99.  Since we'd gotten to experience the major highlights of NPS units in the area, I decided we should try to get in some driving to the east so we’d have a good starting place for the following day.  We had to dodge a lot of (“rush hour”?) traffic and saw one horrific accident (a little car left the highway and flipped several times until it came to rest in a mangled mess).  We got dinner (McDonalds) in Kingsburg at 1725 and encountered what appeared to be some sort of human trafficking situation that even Mollie noticed (ugh).  Mollie called Nicky again (very short conversation).  We made pretty good time to Bakersfield and then got on CA-58.  Next, we drove through the foothills of the Sierras one more time, mostly backtracking from a few days before.  However, the views were different with the sun at our backs and we got to see some amazing shadows, clouds and solar and wind power farms.  After as much driving as I could stand, we started to encounter VERY heavy wind and I decided I wanted to stop.  When we reached Mojave (home of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShip One), we got off the highway to check on lodging (Mollie helped me a lot).  We found a pretty good deal at the Motel 6 on the edge of town (2045).  After such a memorable day of sightseeing, it was also nice to have gotten ourselves within a “manageable” distance of several more National Parks.  We rested and read in the room until about 2300.