Day 10: San Francisco, CA to Yosemite NP
Silicon Valley and Yosemite National Park
We left bright and early to avoid Bay Area traffic. However, it was apparently not early enough and we chugged slowly through traffic. The plan was to do a driving tour of Silicon Valley.
First stop was Google headquarters. There wasn’t a good place to park, so we just drove through. Next we drove to Stanford University with the intention of walking around the campus, but every parking spot we came across was either permit or pay parking, so we just drove around instead of stopping. The third location was the new Apple headquarters, but large amounts of construction limited what we could see. Apple says it “opened” in April, but the large amount of construction says otherwise.
With Silicon Valley not going as planned, we continued on to Yosemite National Park.
We booked our campsite in Yosemite in February. The National Park Service puts all of the campsites for sale 6 months in advance. They usually sell in under an hour. I was ready to place the order within seconds of it becoming available and by the time I was finished checking out, nearly everything was gone. There were backpackers that were wandering around the night we were there trying to figure out where to stay after having hiked into the park.
Once we arrived at Yosemite we set up our campsite and took a look at the map. The plan had been to hike to Yosemite Falls, but we arrived to late in the afternoon. Instead we picked Vernal Falls and set off on a hike there. The trail was easy and paved for part of the way, but as we got further the mosquitos increased and as sunset approached we decided we had to turn around and go back to the campground.
Tomorrow we hike to the top of Yosemite Falls and drive to Los Angeles.
Day 11 —>
