Yosemite National Park

After a pleasant night in a comfortable room, we continued on Tuesday: The drive to Yosemite National Park, one of the most visited parks in America, took about 4 hours. We made a stop along the way to buy groceries for the next 2 days at Walmart (♥️). The passing landscape was partly familiar to me (vineyards, olive fields, cities, and suburbs), partly unfamiliar (vast dry grasslands). However, the drive went by quickly as I spent about 1.5 hours writing in my journal, which I had neglected in the past week. Then I napped for about 20 minutes and watched an episode of 'Stranger Things' on Netflix (@ Sabine: soooo scary!!) So far, the bus ride has been very pleasant and great. If I had to 'experience' all these national parks alone, I would probably be so exhausted after the long hours of driving that I wouldn't be able to enjoy nature anymore. Or maybe I would have to stay longer in one place before moving on. But like this, it's really cozy, I don't have to worry about my luggage all day since it's stored in the trailer, and I know that the driver will take us to the right place and take care of finding parking, etc. My travel companions also didn't speak a word during the entire drive, so I was very well-rested upon arrival. Let's see how it will be on the second part of the tour, where we will apparently be on the bus for up to 9 hours and there will be even more people.

We stayed 2 nights in the 'town' of Mariposa at the entrance of the national park. This allowed us to explore the park on Wednesday. We told the driver that we wanted to go on a 5-hour hike and asked to leave at 6 am. The start of the trail was about 1.5 hours drive from the hotel. While in the past few weeks I mostly walked on asphalt, this was a real hike (according to Swiss standards 😜) to impressive waterfalls. Along the way, we also saw many squirrels (adorable) and a few elk. We were all quite tired afterwards, and I was glad that most people still had leftovers and didn't want to go to a restaurant, so I could 1.) save money and 2.) comfortably watch Suits on TV 😁