Drive Day

Surprisingly I got a good nights sleep in the Super Wal-Mart parking lot!  It was a bit noisy around midnight, but then it got quiet and it even got cold just before dawn!  Last night before I went to sleep I ran the generator for about an hour to bring the battery up so the fridge would stay cold all night.  The generator is like a lawn mower engine and it’s right under my bed.   It was so loud it was like a sound machine on steroids, and it made the bed vibrate. That’s when I realized I was sitting on my bed, in the back of my van, in the Wal-Mart parking lot AND my bed was vibrating.  I bet there are people in West Virginia who would pay money for a Friday evening like that!

Since I didn’t have a picnic table to sit at or my Kindle to read I took my coffee and wandered through Wal-Mart!  At 8 am on a Saturday I had the place mostly to myself.  It was kinda nice!  I also picked up a few things I didn’t get yesterday. 

Dad fixed some pancakes and eggs for breakfast, then I went and got a Jamba Juice smoothie – a big treat since we don’t have one near me! After a lengthy discussion about which way to go and finally getting Dad’s GPS software on his computer to concede that we could go the way we wanted to, we were on our way. 

We started out going back to 99 and then getting off near Merced (elevation 127 feet) and winding around through the cow pastures to a big lake.  We found a pull off and had lunch right by the lake, then we continued up over the dry arid foothills and then finally into the mountains proper on the John Muir Historic Path.

We found our campground, The Yosemite Ridge Resort, easy enough! We have 2 nice sites here with electric, water and sewer hook ups! My 1st priority was getting the electricity plugged in so my fridge would run.  The next step was to empty the toilet cartridge.  It was much more difficult this time and let’s just say that my next RV, whether I own it or rent it, WILL have a black tank.  This system sucks. I’m also glad that there’s a nice bathhouse with public toilets and showers less than 50 feet from my site – going to try NOT to use the toilet in my RV so I don’t have to empty it!

Our campground is about 45 minutes from the Yosemite Valley and supposedly traffic is horrible, especially on weekends.  We don’t really have a plan for the rest of the week, but tomorrow we are planning to drive out the Tioga Road to Tuolomne Meadows since there will likely be fewer people out there.  This will be a car trip with maybe a short walk or two. 

We have wifi here at the campground, but it’s only at the restaurant  so I may not be on much – just an evening check in.  My phone doesn’t have service up here, but rumor has it there are cell towers in the valley – we’ll see!

Drive to Yosemite