My First Look at Yosemite National Park

I had waiting most of my life to get out west and enjoy the scenery. I can remember even thinking about it when I was a young child, looking at the beautiful pictures and dreaming of the day when I would be able to visit the park. That day actually came about by accident. My wife and I are big Eagles fans (the music group) and we were watching TV one night when a commercial for the group came on. My wife had her laptop with her and she started to research where we could go to see them. It turns out that they were starting their California tour at Lake Tahoe and we bought two tickets on Ebay and away we went.

While we were out there I started looking at maps and noticed that Yosemite was only a few hours drive away, so we took a day, loaded up the car and drove down to see Yosemite. When we got close I started to get really excited because I had never seen anything like this before. I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania so my idea of what a mountain looked like was much smaller than what I was seeing now. I was pleasantly surprised.

We didn't go in through the main part of the park, we went in through the high end and traveled down that road to get to the valley. It was so peaceful and beautiful that I had a huge smile on my face for the entire drive. There were so many different things to see that it was hard to take it all in. I especially enjoyed some of the lakes with the huge rocky mountains in the background. Eventually we made it into the valley and enjoyed seeing some of the sights, such as Half Dome and El Capitan. But by that time of the day it was really crowded and very hot, I have to admit that I enjoyed the first part of the drive much more than being in the valley.

If you are planning on going out to see Yosemite then I would recommend that you do your planning in advance. Try to do the valley early because it can get quite hot and then drive through the high country to enjoy some of the scenery that is off the beaten path. It's a trip that you will always remember.

Yosimite
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