Monthly Archives: April 2010
Sitting out the bad weather…
It was supposed to be cold and rainy today so we decided to wait until tomorrow before visiting Yosemite National Park, and although we saw one burst of sunlight, the forecast turned out to be pretty accurate.
So about 12:30 we headed out to get some lunch and some groceries afterwards.
I stopped by the office on the way out to find out how many RV’ers had used the Park discount coupons that were given out at the Yuma GypsyJournal Rally back in March.
As we were leaving the park we saw a squirrel standing sentry on a rock right outside the gate. We tried to get a picture but he spooked before we could get the camera out.
Maybe when we come back.
We ended up going back to El Cid because we liked it so much last night. I wanted to have another bowl of their albondigas, Mexican meatball soup. We had some last night as an appetizer to our combo platters, but it was so good I decided to have just a bowl of it for lunch. And we got some more cactus pictures while we were there.
We also saw a pair of woodpeckers that, at first glance, I thought were red-headed woodpeckers. But after looking closer at the pictures, I realized they were something I hadn’t seen before. It turns out they are Acorn Woodpeckers.
Heading back home we stopped off at Von’s to pick up some groceries.
Coming back into the park, we found our squirrel standing guard on his rock again.
Although it looks kind of brown in this picture, it’s a Western Gray Squirrel.
Tomorrow we’re going to drive up into Yosemite National Park. If we make the entire loop, it will be about a 200 mile trip.
More later…
High in the Sierras…
We decided to go out for breakfast about 9 am while we were waiting to see if our new site was open yet. Noting that the site was on the way out, we drove by to check it out and found that it was already empty. But there was a problem.
Although it was a pull-thru, the site was kind of short and rolled off down the hill in the front. By the time I had pulled far enough into the site to setup I’d be tilted downhill too much to get leveled. I thought I’d talk with the Park office when we got back.
On recommendation of the office we had breakfast at Pete’s Place in Oakhurst and it was really pretty good. The bacon was especially good.
We got back to the park about 10:30 and I stopped off at the office to find out if another site was available. One of their people took me out to look over two other sites and I picked 511.
About 11:30 we moved into our new site and got set up.
This is a really nice area of the park, off the main road so it’s nice and quiet.
But because of all the nice trees it took a while to get a sight line on the satellite, I had to move it three times before I got a signal. Here’s how I ended up finding a hole in the trees.
If I had a roof-mounted sat dish, we’d have been out of luck. As it is, I had to set up the dish about 30 feet behind the coach.
The weather had been overcast and drizzling on and off all day, and it seemed like the perfect time for an afternoon nap.
And it was.
About 4:45 pm we drove into Oakhurst to have dinner at El Cid, a Mexican restaurant that advertised in the park brochure. And it was well worth the trip. The chips were hot, the salsa was cold, the iced tea was good, and the food was great!
And the view wasn’t too shabby either. We sat out on the glassed-in patio that overlooks the High Sierras,
and looks down on a cactus garden with numerous bird feeders. And tulips, too.
Jan was happy to see all the finches since she used to feed them in Houston before we went fulltime. She was surprised to find out that the finches stay here all year, even during the winter with snow on the ground. In Houston they only stay around for a couple of months in the fall.
We saw several of these red headed birds too, but no one knew what they were. A little Googling told me that these are male house finches. We had never seen them before.
Even bluebirds were hanging around. Don’t know how happy they were, tho.
We got back to the rig about 6 pm and settled in for the night.
The weather is supposed to be even worse tomorrow, so we’ll probably wait until Thursday before we do any sightseeing, but we’ll see.
More tomorrow…
