Yosemite

The weather forecast this morning for Yosemite was 40% chance of snow today and 90% tonight. However, when we looked out our room the sky was almost free of cloud, so we decided to head for Yosemite Village, a ride of about 40 miles. As we gained altitude going into the park we were delighted to see that the pine trees had a dusting of snow on their branches, presumably from a snowfall the previous night.




The trees looked just like the Christmas trees with fake snow on the branches that we have in Australia, except not as fake. Along the way we stopped at a couple of lookouts ("overlooks" the Americans call them) for the obligatory photos - but why not? The views were amazing.

The waterfalls were looking their best, too, because there was still plenty of melting snow to feed them.

We went into Yosemite Village for lunch, and in the half hour we were there the weather started closing in, so we decided to high-tail it out in case it decided to get nasty. Indeed there were a few spots of rain falling as we went to leave, so it was into the wet weather gear again...

Our plans (made months ago) to ride the high Sierra passes failed to recognise that they would not be open yet. Instead, we decided to head for South Lake Tahoe, 83 miles north (not by road, but as the crow flies, we later realised). We took off, and made our second mistake by heading back through Oakhurst, the way we had come, instead of taking the more northerly road out towards Merced. This meant a much longer trip, but we took off with enthusiasm, and rode for what seemed like a long distance and long time to find ourselves in the small, quaint town of Coulterville, about one tenth of the way to Lake Tahoe - and it was already 4 pm. Our recollection of the highways we had been travelling could not be reconciled with the map in our atlas, and I could easily believe the GPS had taken a long route. It was gorgeous, uninhabited and like all the previous routes we had taken, very different. We had a top view most of the way. This gave it a "heavenly" feel, being green and fresh in springtime. (Take route 49 out of Oakhurst) We stopped for coffee at the Coulter Cafe. It had beautiful wooden floors, seats and fittings all made by the lady that ran it. While we were there, the heavens opened up.

It was clear we weren't going to get to Lake Tahoe tonight, so we decided to cut and run towards the coast. This also meant we could catch up to our original schedule which will take us up the Big Sur Highway.

From Coulterville we encountered heavy rain all the way west to Waterford, 42 miles away. At times we were buffeted by strong wind gusts, making this part of our journey rather unpleasant. Not finding any motels there we turned south for another 18 miles to Turlock where there was still some blue sky. Another flat orchard area, with hugely dispersed facilities. The odd person was seen cycling or running along the road - to where??????? Nothing but orange trees were to be seen.