Day 14 - June Lake to Yosemite

After eating bacon and eggs on the balcony, we quickly packed up to leave. Gas at the town of Lee Vining was $4.39 a gallon. 

We may not have reception for a week, so I may not be able to post until then. I guess maybe we do at times.  Here are some photos.  There are SO many people here!  Many of them are foreign. Hopefully the early mornings will be better to explore without the huge crowds. Brad did tell someone off today and some people applauded, but that's a story for another time.

Along Tioga Road, we stopped to take photos many times. This part of the high country of Yosemite.  It is beautiful here! We hiked the Toulmne Meadows for an hour.  The river was so clear and pristine!  Then we hiked around a really cool spot at Olmstead Point where we had a great view of the valley.  This place is beautiful and so grand!

We got in Yosemite Valley at 2:00 PM.  We tried to get the area figured out.  It was frustrating with all of the people and it was confusing to find our way around.  It wasn't how we dreamed it would be, so we were a little disheartened, but when we saw El Capitan we were blown away by how huge it was.

Brad answers a Hollander's car question while we are there. You know what a "car" guy he is.

Our campsite at Wawona is perfect, private and rustic despite the jumping lizards.  Two 8" long lizards were jumping from rock to rock.  This quiet campground is a 45-minute drive from the valley and it is very, very windy.  It's not an easy drive.  We love the campground which is away from the crowds. 

We were warned big time to get everything with a scent into the bear box because they have a bear that got into a car and ripped through the backseat to get food in the trunk.  They also have a pesky Mountain Lion here. Our neighbors are two rangers trying to solve that problem.

After setting up the tent, we went to Glacier Point for sunset photos. On the way we came across a bear jam.  There was a mother Black Bear and her twins. They were so cute!

We got back to camp after 9:00 PM, did bear chores, had a bite to eat and got to sleep.  There were no new life birds today as we were in the car a lot.

Toulmne Meadows was very pretty!

The mountain stream was so clear.

This Prairie Dog was running around there.  

We came across a "bear jam" today and saw this 
mother bear with two cubs!

This Clark's Nutcracker was in the meadow too.

There were Mountain Bluebirds flitting about.

Yosemite Valley was grand!

Olmstead Point was our first view of Yosemite.

Brad along with many other photographers were set up 
ready to capture a beautiful sunset.

We saw this nice sunset on our drive 
back to the campground.

Day 13 Birds

This morning at Twin Falls I saw my first Pine Grosbeak perched atop a pine tree. I didn't get a photo of it, but I have a very nice photo of the branch it was on!

Life bird number 22 was seen at Mono Lake when we went to check out the strange tufa formations.  While we were there I saw and heard a Brewer's Sparrow perched on the Sagebrush along with a Savannah Sparrow. The photo I got doesn't show its head, but it looked a bit like a Clay-colored Sparrow. I recorded the song and it is a perfect match.  It is a long pretty song that we heard over and over again.  Also seen at Mono Lake was an Osprey near its nest atop a tufo formation out in the middle of the lake.

Savannah Sparrow

California Gulls...I think!  There were hundreds of them flying over Gull Lake!

The Osprey on the left has a nest on the tufa on the right.

Day 13 - June Lake, CA

The Mammoth Lakes area is beautiful! We tented at Twin Lakes. We did not see any bears even though there are 40 that are in the area. It was a cold night with temperatures in the mid 30s.  That is kind of interesting...we went from picnicking at 111 degrees in Death Valley to sleeping in the 30s in a 12 hour span.  We also had a huge altitude change as well.

We were up at 7:30 AM to look at the local lakes by 8:50 we had the tent down and we were ready to roll!  We visited with a couple and the wife commented about my strong Minnesota accent. Ha!

The lakes here as well as the Hoover Dam were very low of water.  We can see the affects of the severe drought.

We came across a strange place where the sign said it seeps high concentrations of carbon dioxide, which can be fatal! We didn't stay there long.

We went Mono Lake to check out the strange tufa formations.  Tufa are delicate carbonate rock structure which form underwater as chemicals in the ground seep up through the lake bed, causing the rock formations to grow like coral does in the sea.  While there I saw and heard a life bird - Brewer's Sparrow on the Sagebrush along with a Savannah Sparrow. We drove the June Lake Rd and stopped to do a little hiking.

We arrived at June Lake at 2:30. We are staying at an inn and for the rest of the day we will take it easy and enjoy this beautiful place! It has a balcony with a view of the lake and mountain. We need to recharge before we camp in Yosemite for the next five nights.  We have traveled over 3,000 miles so far!

We stopped in at a microbrewery, but it wasn't my kind of place. Later we ate over priced meals at a restaurant and then we stopped at an overpriced store to buy a treat. Everything out here costs more than in SD, so that is difficult to get used to.

I loved this campsite below these tall trees.

I've never heard of anything like this before.

Our picnic site for the day.

The tufa is certainly an unusual rock formation.

Tufa in the water.

This is another variety of tufa.

More tufa!

There were signs reporting that the tufa is very fragile.

June Lake is quite pretty.

This is our room at the Heidelberg Inn at June Lake.

It was really nice to have our own balcony with a mountain view.

Day 12 Birds

Before we arrived at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, we stopped at a scenic view point and I saw three Sage Thrashers - life bird #20 for the trip!

This is a Sage Thrasher!  Life bird!

This appears to be a Bullock's Oriole, which is a western bird
 that I have only seen once, so this was nice to see again!

Day 12 - Traveling Through Death Valley

We headed to the scenic byway going through Death Valley.  Impressions are interesting.  I always thought that Death Valley was really flat, boring and hot.  I was wrong on two of those, but it was very hot!  It got to 111 degrees!  We loved seeing all of the different kinds of cactus and one traveler was there with his Blue and Green Macaw.  

People were jogging in the terrible heat.  We saw colorful rock formations, huge sand dunes and sand devils/tornadoes.  

By the time we got to the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the temperature had dropped to 88 degrees in the foothills of the mountains. We were in Bishop at 5:40 PM.  At night in the Twin Lake Campground it got into the 30s.  We witnessed quite a temperature change.

We camped at the Twin Lakes CG near mammoth Lakes. I loved the campground!  It had huge conifer trees and it was very rustic. We were back in bear country, so we have "bear chores" to do again.  We went for a drive to see the pretty mountain lakes and a waterfall.  We never stay in one place too long.

Ha-ha!

A man was traveling with his pet macaw.

I love these trees!

We were surprised to see rain in Death Valley.

This is an interesting campground!  We had our picnic here in 111 degree heat!

I love views like this!

It was much cooler in the mountains.  The mountain lakes in 
California were also very dry due to their severe drought.

Thankfully we didn't need fuel there.

We saw two truckloads of onions go by. We smelled them 
before we saw them.

Day 11- On Road to Las Vegas

We left Cottonwood at 8:00 AM for Las Vegas.  We went through a unique town called Jerome, AZ. Then we explored the area of Granite Dells.  It was really neat and it reminded me of the Sylvan Lake area in the Black Hills. There were many little lizards there and a life bird - the Phainopepla!

The towns around here have rocky yards with cactuses and beautiful flowering plants.

They have traffic circles in this state, which were new to us.  They make a lot of sense and work slick.

Sunrise out here  is at 5:15 AM with sunset at 7:40 PM, so that is different than at home where sunset is at 9:15 PM.

We stopped at the Hoover Dam and I thought that was really amazing!  It was a big tourist stop and it costs a lot. It was $10 to park and $35 per person for the dam tour, which we didn't do because we were in a hurry. There were many tourists there.

Hmm...Las Vegas is interesting. Some things are really cool and fascinating, while some things are very disturbing.  We definitely were "not in Kansas anymore".

There are SO many people in Las Vegas. It was more than what I'm comfortable with.  Most people are happy it seems. We did not do any gambling, but did sightseeing instead.

Our room on the 11th floor of the MGM Signature Hotel.  It is really nice with a balcony.  "The Fountains of Bellagio" were really neat!

We ate at Margaritaville after sharing a slice of amazing cheesecake from the Cheescake Factory earlier.   It is really loud in Las Vegas and I'm ready to get back to the mountains tomorrow.  

The Granite Dells were really cool!

I loved seeing the variety of interesting plants.

The Hoover Dam

Las Vegas

This photo and the next couple are in Caesar's Palace, which seemed more like an extravagant mall to me.

The ceiling was like a sky with clouds.

The Belagio Hotel had the fountain show synced to music.

Our motel was very nice and quite reasonable.

This is our view out our balcony window.

This part of Vegas is called New York, New York.