Yosemite, The Valley

This morning our attempts to enter straight into Yosemite were thwarted a little bit...There was some light snow on the ground and the park rangers had closed one of the main roads into the park unless you happened to have snow tire chains!

Being in a rental car we certainly didn't have any of those with us *laughs* so we made due touring about Wawona until the finally let us measly non tire chained cars through.

They had a neat little "old timey" town that had some historical information and at times I believe they perform like a renaissance fair (except it's just 1800's and not Renaissance times) *grins* It's a Pioneer fair *laughs*Can you see that steam rising off this building (above) it was a cold morning and the sun must have been warming up that wet roof to make all that steam! There was an amazing covered bridge that passed right over a rumbling river.
Dad and Kenny had a good time hiking down the river to see where it headed.The rangers finally gave the all clear and we were able to drive on into the valley. Yay! Kenny really captured some beautiful shots of the park!He sure makes it hard to narrow down my favorite pictures, I love them all!!We saw some amazing views of half dome, like this...
Can you see why they call it "half dome"? It looks like it used to be a complete dome and then half of it just broke straight off! *laughs*I'm glad I wasn't around when all that rock came tumbling down!This rock formation below is called El Capitan. Doesn't it look strong and menacing!It's a favorite of extreme rock climbers...but we didn't do any of that *grins*Kenny hiked across the center of the meadow to capture some 'up close' pictures of the sweet deer who were grazing nearby. Meanwhile Dad, Mom and I drove around the meadow and picked him up on the other side.Look at this neat-o wooden walkway he got to follow through the meadow!These sweeties weren't scared at all. I guess they're used to photographers here in the park.You'll never believe what Dad, Mom and I happened upon while we were circling the meadow to pick Kenny up...A big Momma and two precious baby black bear cubs!
They were such little cuties! We were wondering if Kenny would meet up with them on his hike!?! But a park ranger saw that people were gathering around, so he ran out and gruffly shouted and scared them back out of the meadow.Kenny was pretty disappointed that he missed out seeing the bears, but he got some awesome shots that we wouldn't have seen otherwise...He even stopped and silently crept up to photograph this beautiful Stellars Jay.I had been begging him to get a picture of one. They are so bright! Kind of like a blue Jay but bigger and more light electric blue.

We all walked back over by "emerald beach" and crossed our favorite bridge *grins*No ducklings today, the must have gone on down river... Can you see the waterfall reflecting in the water above? So pretty! Speaking of reflections, this one is pretty amazing too!We hiked up a small trail to take some fun couples pictures right under the waterfall!And then ended our evening driving up to the valley overlook just as the sun was starting to set.

We just had such an amazing day! It's hard to put it all into words...but hopefully from the pictures you can feel like you were there too!