Last Day at Yosemite National Park – Tioga Road Pleasures (National Parks Trip #3)

This post represents another installment in the series documenting our West Coast National Parks trip in the summer of 2017.  Alan and I, along with our 18 year old daughter, Kyra, logged a total of 8,513 memorable miles of adventure over the course of five and a half weeks during the months of July and August.

Day #16 of our West Coast National Parks trip marked our third and final day in Yosemite.  It was definitely a whirlwind visit, but we did manage to squeeze quite a bit of sightseeing into those three days.  I have no doubt that we could easily while away at least two weeks in this magnificent Park.  Ah, if only we had the time.  The weather gods had granted us yet another blue sky day, and we wasted no time in heading out to explore the northern section of the Park.

Yosemite National Park - So Worth the Effort! (National Parks Trip #3)

Early in March, Alan and I enjoyed our first snowbird adventure when we spent time in Florida, Georgia and Virginia.  Now that I’ve completed documenting that expedition, I’m returning to our West Coast National Parks trip in the summer of 2017.  On that trip, Alan and I, along with our 18 year old daughter, Kyra, logged a total of 8,513 memorable miles of adventure over the course of five and a half weeks during the months of July and August.

Yosemite National Park is a tough ticket to get.  Camping reservations within the Park are extraordinarily difficult to come by, crowds are extraordinarily easy to run into, and Mother Nature always feels free to throw one of her famous curve balls, making a ticket that’s tough to get even tougher to hold onto.  About a week before I began drafting this post, Yosemite Valley was closed to visitors for a number of days.  The record snowpack in the Sierra Nevada had started to melt, and above average temperatures were predicted, creating perfect conditions for the Merced River to reach flood stage and impact Yosemite Valley.  Visitors who had planned to arrive in late April and early May, had their hopes dashed, as the National Park Service closed Yosemite Valley out of concern for the public’s safety.  This year’s visitors aren’t out of the woods yet.

Yosemite National Park - The Ahwahnee Hotel: "Majestic No More" (National Parks Trip #3)

This post represents another installment in the series documenting our West Coast National Parks trip in the summer of 2017.  Alan and I, along with our 18 year old daughter, Kyra, logged a total of 8,513 memorable miles of adventure over the course of five and a half weeks during the months of July and August.

Yosemite National Park had been a bucket list item of ours for more years than I’d care to count.  Since a straight-line journey from our home to Yosemite is nearly 3,000 miles, we knew that this visit would require an extended trip.  We held off for a number of years, never feeling that the timing was right.  As it turned out, the summer of 2017, following Kyra’s high school graduation, provided the best opportunity.  As far as I’m concerned, our timing was about as far from impeccable as you can get.  Why?  At the time of our visit, the National Park Service was embroiled in a lawsuit with the Park’s former concessionaire.  Somehow, we managed to visit Yosemite National Park during the four years that the Park’s iconic hotel, the Ahwahnee, was not the Ahwahnee.

And . . . Ampersand! (National Parks Trip #3)

This post represents another installment in the series documenting our West Coast National Parks trip in the summer of 2017.  Alan and I, along with our 18 year old daughter, Kyra, logged a total of 8,513 memorable miles of adventure over the course of five and a half weeks during the months of July and August.

Despite the fact that Alan and I have been huge fans of our National Parks for more than 40 years, we had never visited Yosemite until this trip in 2017.  It was, in fact, the Park around which the entire trip was built.  To say we were excited about our next stop was an understatement.

Celebrating National Park Week 2019 – Why It’s Impossible for Me to Choose a Favorite Park

National Park Week 2019 runs from Saturday, April 20^th, through Sunday, April 28^th, with a “fee-free” day on the 20^th to kick off the week of celebration.  Other “fee-free” days during 2019 are August 25th (the birthday of the National Park Service), September 28th (National Public Lands Day) and November 11^th (Veterans Day), so mark your calendar accordingly.  Spring is a perfect time of year to get out and enjoy our national treasures, and many of our National Parks have special events scheduled during the week.  Plus, the National Park Service has assigned a theme to many of the days during National Park Week such as Junior Ranger Day on April 20^th and Bark Ranger Day on April 27^th.  (Yes!  Some National Parks and Monuments do allow pets!)  National Park Week focuses on the beauty and benefits of these glorious public lands – OUR public lands - and the countless opportunities that exist for us to enjoy them.

Photo credit:  www.nps.gov

Many of you know that our love affair with our National Parks began back when Alan and I honeymooned by tent camping across the country on a journey to visit several of the iconic Parks in the American West.  Currently, there are 61 National Parks in existence, but properties managed by the National Park Service number 419 and include National Monuments, Battlefields, Military Parks, Historical Parks, Historic Sites, Lakeshores, Seashores, Recreation Areas, Scenic Rivers and Trails, and the White House.  We’ve made a dent in that list, but we still have a long way to go to see them all.  (Interesting tidbit of information:  The largest National Park is Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska at 13.2 million acres, and the smallest is the Thaddeus Kosciuszko Memorial in Pennsylvania at 0.02 acres.)  With all of those Parks to choose from, (okay, Mike, I admit it should be “from which to choose”), the question that inevitably comes up is, “Which National Park is your favorite?”