On The Road With Pinky

We recently visited Yosemite National Park. Now I admit I'm not much of a nature girl. Hiking, camping, and roughing it hold little appeal for me. What I'm really looking for in a vacation is a nice hotel, room service and a heated pool. But Yosemite was beautiful and we had a surprising amount of fun. There are many adventures to be had and hiking isn't a requirement.

El Capitan!
It is El Capitan

They have a lot of very large rocks there, such as the famous El Capitan. The trees are also really big.

The waterfalls were beautiful and apparently people die each year trying to climb them.

If you ever go to Yosemite, I would recommend waking up at dawn because that's when the most animals are around, having breakfast. We saw a family of deer, and some unbelievably cute baby bears.

Not the actual bears we saw

Unfortunately, the souvenir situation in Yosemite is not all it could be. The floaty pens were the cheap, crummy kind made in China. So ugly and poorly made, they are an insult to floaty lovers everywhere. I boycotted them. The snowdomes were lucite. Nothing to write home about. They did have a nice old style souvenir spoon, available HERE.

I loved Yosemite and recommend it highly. My suggestion would be to go in the Fall, when it's not completely overrun with people. Prepare for the cold and plan ahead for lodging. There are reasonable rooms available inside the park, in Curry Village, but you'll need reservations. And don't miss the expensive but unbelievably delicious Sunday brunch in The Ahwahnee Hotel. Cheese blintzes like you'd died and gone to heaven. Click here for visitor's info.