California Cross State Road Trip - Yosemite

The last leg of our road trip was to visit and stay with my grandparent's who live in Mariposa, CA.  They took us along for a lovely day trip to Yosemite National Park which is nearby to where they live.

It was a cold morning but slowly the sun took over and warmed us up for the remainder of the day in the park.  We stopped by the Ahwahnee Hotel.  It was built in 1927 and has housed many park visitors through the years including royalty, dignitaries, and celebrities.  In 1943 the hotel was used by the U.S. Navy as a hospital for war veterans.  It has gone through a few remodels but still is much like it was on the very first day it opened.   

These were our personal tour guides for the day, my grandparents!

The great lounge was used as a model for the lounge in Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining".

Warming my cold cold hands and feet by the fire.

This is the dinning room.  Just absolutely gorgeous isn't it!

My grandpa pointed out this lovely mural that is in one of the back private lounge rooms.  All of the animals in the mural can be found in the park.  A deer appeared outside the window just as my grandpa was telling us this fact.
 

The hotel offers many windows to the past with many pictures on the walls of past hotel guests.  These were a few of my favorites.

The hotel has many of these stained glass windows scattered throughout.

We headed outside to have a picnic outside beneath the trees after our tour of the Ahwahnee.

This is Half Dome which is one of the most recognized mountains in the park.  The granite rock rises 4,737 feet above the valley of the park.  It was originally known as Tis-sa-ack by the Native American inhabitants of the park.  Tis-sa-ack was a legend in their culture.  They believe you can see her face on the side of the mountain crying.

We stopped by the Yosemite History center and walked through a great mini museum and watched a great movie about the park.

Dave and John Muir. 

Hey look!! It's Dave and I many many moons ago! I found this picture in the museum and thought it looked a lot like us.

Peek-a-boo!

Dave next to one of the big trees.  There are much bigger ones throughout the park however.

This is El Capitan.  It's very popular with climbers.  I can only imagine what it might be like to climb a monstrous rock like this!

I focused in on this picture and spotted a section of the mountain that to me looked like a moa tiki idol.  Do you see it too?

It's quite ironic that I would spot a tiki like image in Yosemite as I ended up finding my biggest tiki mug scores in Mariposa.  Blog to follow next.



Till' Next Time,

Suz

Yosemite on Dwellable