Drive from Tonopah to Yosemite

We got up and had breakfast at the Best Western where we stayed - Mitch said the eggs didn't taste like mine. His first experience with powdered eggs, I suppose. They had cinnamon rolls, though, so all was forgiven.

We were gassed up (and Dr. Pepper'ed up for Bill:) and leaving Tonopah, NV, just after 7am. The gps said Curry Village (where our tent is in Yosemite) was just under 4 hours away. We got to the eastern entrance to the park in 3 hours, but then took our time driving to the western side of the park where we are staying - so amazingly beautiful.

But first, details about what we saw before we reached Yosemite. We drove over Boundary Peak, which is at 13,000 feet elevation, the tallest point in Nevada. We could see snow-covered mountains all around. We also saw wild horses, I had never seen that before, pretty cool. We later drove over Montgomery Pass, at 7,000 feet. Our ears were popping a lot today. The best part of the drive was Hwy 120, which took us from Benton, CA, to the eastern gate of Yosemite. This was a tiny road that had a lot of small, tightly spaced hills which felt like a roller-coaster and elicited many 'Weee's!' from the back seat (and several from the front seat, too, it was a lot of fun). Bill saw a roadrunner run across the road - too quickly to get a picture, of course. Once we were in the park, we saw scores of chipmunks running across the road. The kids had fun telling them to get out of the way. :)

At the eastern entrance, we showed our pass to the park ranger. We bought an annual pass to the national parks at the Grand Canyon, because it was cheaper than paying separate fees to each of the parks on this trip (GSMNP is one of the few national parks in the country that doesn't charge for entrance). Anyway, you have to show ID when you present the pass. I gave him my driver license. He asked what part of the state we were from, and we said Knoxville, because that's usually a place people outside the state have heard of. He smiled really big and said, "I went to UT, I am a Vol!" We smiled back and said "We went there, too!". He said there were "93 days left until football season" and that (Kevin somebody?, I don't remember who he said, but I took it to be a new quarterback) was "going to tear it up". The power of Tennessee football stretches far and wide. :)