Day 5- Yosemite...is this where Yogi Bear lived?

Woke up in Tenayah Lodge just outside of Yosemite. We had decided to camp every other day so we could at least have a shower and clean clothes. :) Camping is fun....but I sure appreciate a nice clean bathroom and hot water. We didn't have far to drive, so we headed out to the park as soon as it was light. The park gates weren't open yet, but we had maps and knew where we were going. Just like in Kings and Sequoia, every stop had bear boxes with giant warnings about bears smelling anything even slightly similar to food in your car. Yosemite went a step further and said your personal property would be confiscated and held if food was found in your car. I guess we got lucky....no bear encounters while we were in Yosemite. We were surprised NOT to see any bears because of all the strict warnings and bear crossing signs. If you saw a crossing with a red bear on the sign, it meant a bear had recently been hit by a car there.

Our first hike that day took us to several look out places. If you click on the picture above, notice the two water falls on the right side across the valley. Those are the ones we hiked to later in the day. From the spot the picture was taken, you could hear the roaring of the waterfalls. It was such a beautiful and still morning...it felt like all my footsteps were loud and intrusive.

We stopped at the sole outhouse on this ridge...and Cory wouldn't even go inside because the smell was so horrific. He chose a tree since we were out early enough that there wasn't a crowd yet. I should have done the same thing....but thought it could be tolerated for a few seconds while I ran in to pee. I was sooooo wrong. How can I describe the smell? Perhaps imagine pouring ammonia into your nostrils so that it burns off all your nose hairs and it's all you can smell for the rest of the day. I can't imagine I was in there for more than 30 seconds...and the smell attached itself to my clothes and hair. It was literally all I could smell for the rest of the day. I don't know if Cory was being nice when he said the smell had gone away about 2 hours later....but he also told me we would make a fire that night and drown out the ammonia smell with smoke smell. :)

We met some nice Japanese tourists at the top of one hill, and I embarassed myself with my lack of vocabulary.

We picked up a pocket full of seeds from the various evergreen trees. Every time Cory saw a big pine cone, he was amazed and wanted to take it home....until he saw the next one that was bigger. There were some amazingly big pine cones...I think the biggest came from a tree called the Sugar Pine. The hotel sold those cones for $15 each. :)

The mountain across here is the famous half dome. We couldn't hike it because the cables had been taken down for the winter. T-shirts in all the gift shops had bragging rights for those who had made it to the top of Half-Dome...similar to the shirts people can buy in Zion saying they've made it to the top of Angel's Landing. :)
We hiked up to see several waterfalls. This was one that we saw from across the valley early that morning. I hope you can see the rainbow across the bottom of the waterfall. :) This climb included 600 steps carved into the granite path. My legs were feeling tired when we reached the top of the first waterfall....and then I saw 6 and 7 year old children who had made the climb. My first thought was that Emma never would have climbed it without a lot of crying and being carried most of the way. My other thought was I better suck it up and keep going if little kids were making it look so easy. :)
Here is Cory at the top of the first waterfall.

This waterfall went down onto the slick granite in what looked like a water slide into a crystal blue lake. It looked like it would be something fun to try in the summer....but pretty crazy too, since the lake wasn't very big and went quickly off a 500 foot cliff in another waterfall. :)

We ended up having a beautiful day, hiked more than 10 miles, and ended up in a cute campground. The campers next to us had two attack dachshunds that we were sure would alert us if any bears came into camp. We boiled water on a little portable gas stove that Cory's friend Charlie had given him just for this trip. Cory had also bought a pot for the trip that was made out of some kind of metal that wasn't hot to the touch even when the water was boiling. We made dehydrated vegetable lasagna and broccoli cheese potatoes. Only the addition of salt would have made it better. :) With everything in the bear box, including the scented toilet paper and minty toothpaste, we slept nicely. I couldn't help wondering if the bears stayed away because of the smell of ammonia that was still in my hair.