Yosemite: Wawona

Wanted to write this in the cottage guestbook, but Esther and the kids didn't leave me any space:

There once was a family from the land of Don
Quixote, Pelayo and Juan (or John)
They went on  trip
And wrote about it
At jela2014.blogspot.com

Felt pretty happy with the result, and after all that hard work I had to put it somewhere, but I won't be giving up my day job...

Took the long route to our next destination, Reedly (for Kings Canyon National Park) via Yosemite. Specifically the Wawona area, which we hadn't visited yet. On the way we passed the entrance to the valley; it looks like Monday's it gets just as crowded, maybe 10% less, but 90% of to many people is still to many people. Quite scandalised to find a golf course at Wawona (I think it was just a 9-hole) - surely golfers can kick the habit for a few days while they visit a National Park.

There is a free shuttle bus up to Mariposa Grove, where there are a few giant sequoias. Ditched the "tram" which takes you round the whole grove (expensive, no walking, half an hour's wait) and just walked up to the California Tunnel Tree, which has a hole in it big enough for a car to pass through (cut out in 1895, before humans realised hacking a massive hole through a 1000-year-old tree was not such a good idea).

Couldn't walk much more as we were still 2h from the next model. Back to bland, soulless accommodation after 4 days of fun lodgings. All in the name of balancing the budget, oh well.