Yosemite National Park

Up early in the freezing temperatures and headed across to Yosemite National Park, about 30 minutes drive away. We were a little limited in what we could do because of Schnitzel, who as usual was only allowed on paved trails, so we had to pick and choose quite a bit.

But it worked out, we managed to drive the typical 2 hour Yosemite Valley loop, including Bridalveil Falls, Half Dome, El Capitan and a few other sights as well, and we filmed as we went.

Spent a couple of hours in the afternoon driving up to Glacier Point lookout, which we assumed would be closed by now but thankfully wasn't! We'd gotten in just in time, as it looked like a large dump of snow was incoming for next weekend and if we'd arrived then, we likely wouldn't have seen anything!

Last stop for the day was to the southern end of Yosemite, the giant sequoia trees. I remembered visiting these as a kid, although you can't drive up to them anymore - you have to get a shuttle bus from a carpark 10 minutes away. We got one of the last buses of the day in fading light, but still managed to fit in a mile-long walk to see the more impressive trees. Largest trees in the world, though not the tallest - those are the redwoods which we'll encounter soon.

Back to the campground for the night where we had dinner in the on-site restaurant. Slightly overpriced but the queues were horrendous - pretty much everyone on site had the same idea and it took over 30 minutes to queue up for food! But it was tasty stuff, and they had a local band playing inside so the atmosphere was quite festive (thankfully we'd left Schnitzel in the cabin before they started up).Read more