Day 9 & 10...that's a whole lotta days, people...

They have a fantastic eatery in remote Tuolumne Meadows.  Fantastic because I didn't have to cook.   It really was delish, though.  So, that's where we ate our morning grub.  We sat on a rock and looked over the Meadow.  Wonderful...

So, then on to the thing that had been stressing me out the whole trip...descending Tioga Pass.    Our Murano has been completely awesome so far.  She has climbed the Sierra Nevadas, crawled along the PCH, basically climbing from sea level to 10,000 feet without so much as a flinch.  Descending so rapidly?  That was a little worrisome.

Hmmmm....

Guess what?  no problems whatsoever.  Except I was, once again, sitting on the sheer drop-off side.  I really hate that.

Wanted to stop at Mono Lake...hubster blew right past.  Wanted to stop at The Mobil in Lee Vining...hubster blew right past.  Wanted to stop at the Bodie Ghost Town...hubster didn't want to stop because of the rough road/trailer combo.  I may have to come back to that one sometime.  I got the feeling that he just wanted to get to Elko.  

The roads through Nevada were terrific.  Smooth. As. Silk. That is until we hooked up with I-80.  I-80 is one terrible road to drive with a little trailer.

We decided to stay in a hotel for the last night.  I know. Total cop-out.  We all needed a shower and I definitely needed to spend an hour in the hot tub. And eat to Costa Vida.  I needed that, too...
We didn't sleep any better in the hotel room than we did in the trailer.  In fact, the hubster got up in the middle of the night and went to sleep in the trailer.  The horn from the train that was a half mile away, while he was dead asleep, almost made for the second cardiac incident of the trip.

It was a fantastic trip.  The trailer didn't desolve into kindling and we had so much more fun than we even expected. I have the feeling that this trip will obtain legend-status.

ps....The Suisse Yosemite tent? Fantastic!  Went up and down 6 different times.  It was super easy to pop up. No tears or damage.  Would totally recommend this tent to anyone.

Day 8 - Tuolumne loves Toulumyou

Ok. About the blog title...I couldn't get the drift of saying "Tuolumne".  So, I do what I always do when I need to inscribe something in my little brain - I make up a song about it.  Just ask my family.  Not only do they think that I'm off  my rocker for doing this, I generally drive them nuts with it.  So, it is a win-win all around for me. Maybe not for them.  For those of you familiar with John Legend - you'll get it.

Back to our little adventure...We returned in the dark to our campsite and cooked.  In the dark.  Need to invest in some lanterns. Eating with head lamps tend to blind the person across from you if you happen to glance up. Unfortunately, Kolton learned this the hard way.  He is now blind.

I wished that we could have seen more of Summerdale Campground but we had decided to move on through the park since the fires were mostly contained.  That would put us on the east entrance to Yosemite.  East meaning we were closer to home when we got up to drive the following day.

So, we were able to give the tiny turquoise trailer the Grand Tour of Yosemite Valley.  We had initially planned on not stopping in Yosemite Village because we thought that it would be too busy, but the previous day was so sparse on visitors that we thought that we would see if our luck would hold out.  And yay! it was even less crowded early in the morning, so we parked the trailer in Yosemite Village and went to see the Ahwahnee Lodge.  This was something that we really wanted to see and it didn't disappoint.

No...don't take my picture...

We had thought about eating breakfast at the Ahwahnee but they have a dress code, ya'll!  And camping and dress code aren't simpatico.  If you know what I mean.  We did use the bathrooms there, though, and they were pretty swanky. It is sad how you learn to appreciate bathrooms when you are camping.

Didn't eat but did admire.

LOVE! This picture.  This is a true vintage camping adventure.

The drive through the park was slow going but beautiful.  It was even slower going because they had decided that August would be a great time to do road construction on the only road through Yosemite.  The CDOT must have the same mindset as UDOT ...I know! Let's do a major shutdown of the road during the busiest time! Yeah! Great idea!   Luckily, we were pulling all of our food in the trailer so we were able to have a grand time chowing down on the remaining junk that I had been hoarding.

 Tenaya  Lake was just too beautiful to zoom on past.

Of course, the second we stop our car, our tiny turquoise trailer becomes an immediate draw.  That has been one of the things that has surprised me-how many people want a peek inside and want to know all about her. Where did we get her? Was she in good shape?  What year is she? You have driven how far?  We have had probably 100 people stop us and ask questions.  We have, also,  had many people honk at us as they passed us and give us the thumbs up.  I love that people love her.  She has been such a happy traveler!  We look in the rear view mirror and see her happily swaying behind us like she is saying "I'm going on a trip!".  Love that cute little trailer.

FIRE!

Tuolumne Meadows Campground. Where were all the people in Yosemite?  They were in the Tuolumne Meadows Campground.  Sorry.  Not a huge fan.  It was convenient to some really great hikes and amazing scenery but it was soooo crowded.  And there was absolutely no privacy.  The neighbors tent was less than 10 feet from Kolton's tent.  Dirt.  No vegetation. Whatsoever. Bathrooms were pretty nice, however, and there were lots of trees.  I did see that there were some nicer campsites than ours but there wasn't very many of them.  Once again, you couldn't pick your own campsite, they were assigned when you arrived.  So, basically, it was a complete crap shoot.

I had initially wanted to stay at Saddleback Campground but it was first come/first serve campground and I didn't want to put all of my eggs in that basket.  I gathered eggs as a kid and when you have a really full basket - that's when the psycho rooster chases you down and jumps on your back and digs in his spurs.  It's the stuff of nightmares. So, I chose to play it safe.  I still think that it was the right decision, albeat, the more crowded one.

Toulumne Meadow was beautiful.   I think that everyone just hung around the campground because all of our hikes weren't crowded at all. The hikes closest to the campground are easy and full of spectacular vistas.  I know that Tuolumne is a jumping off point for some harder and high adventure hikes, but there are plenty of easy or moderate hikes to go on.  I loved this every bit as much as Yosemite Valley and I feel that we made a fantastic choice to travel from one end of Yosemite to the other.  Of course, we barely scratched the surface but what we did see was amazing.

GAH!

This is a particularly favorite picture.  That is a mule train headed out into the backcountry.  Love it!
The campground is in the far upper left.

A beautiful spot to rest.

Soda Springs

What a lovely day!  We cooked up the remaining food in our icebox...can I say that I got tired the standby hamburgers and hotdogs?....I need to learn how to cook more stuff.  Maybe dutch oven? However, I didn't get sick of s'mores...or anything chocolate.

Day 3 - Lovely Kirk Creek Campground

Up and outta there...
We didn't suppress the urge to be quiet while loading up. I know. We are shameless. We, however, didn't blast our horn like I wanted to.  Rick is the only one who didn't hear the nighttime entertainment, so he still had scruples. Kolton and I compared notes.  Yes, we both did indeed hear our neighbors singing "Piano Man".  At 2:00 am.  Awesome.

We stopped in Truckee to buy stuff.  One thing about having a vintage trailer with vintage appliances - the ice in the icebox will quickly melt, so planning on long term refrigeration is fruitless.  I liked Truckee and would have liked to hang around a bit longer but we had another long haul in front of us so on we went.

We listened to the podcast of "Things You Should Know" about the Donner Party while we were ascending and descending Donner's Summit.  Made us wish that we weren't eating breakfast in the car. Yuck.  My brother used to tell me, when I was like 11 or 12, that I had Donner Party Legs.  This meant that the Donner Party could have lived weeks off of my legs.  Apparently, I didn't have bird legs like he did.  I remembered all of this while listening to the podcast.  It just made me mad at him all over again. Stupidhead.  It's this type of thing that makes me never want to return his tools...

We were a bit worried about descending Donners Summit.  Our Tiny Turquoise Trailer doesn't have any trailer brakes, but our sweet little Murano was great and we didn't have any problems. Another whew!

The journey through California and down the coast was uneventful but busy and long. Finally.. Finally...FINALLY!  we started down Highway 1. That was terrifying.  I had the unfortunate position to be on the sheer drop off side.  In my defense, it was the pulling of the trailer that made me nervous.  That and the fact that the hubby was tired and I was worried about him.

Bixby Bridge

 The 'not too scary' part of Highway 1

Oh, but the gloriousity that awaited our arrival!

This pic is shot from our picnic table.  What an amazing view.

Amazing is not going to cut it...it was magnificent.  Our campsite was (in my humble opinion) the best one in the campground.  There, actually, wasn't a bad campsite but ours was fantastic...well worth the anxiety it took to get it.

So, big sigh of relief!  We made it and now we can settle in for a few wonderful, beautiful days on the California coast.

Side note: Kirk Creek has no water. None. So, bring your own or you will have a very sad and expensive day. We freeze jugs of water to use in our icebox.  You can use that as drinking water as they melt.  We also use a 3 gallon spillproof jug as a backup.  Bathrooms and overall campground were really clean.

See the speck of blue?  That is our trailer and tent!