Pretty Eastern Oregon Drive

We spent the night of July 2 in Burns, Oregon. It was a nice little town and seemed to have everything you really needed while still being in the middle of nowhere. 

We drove through some more pretty scenery on our way home! 

Back in Washington. I laugh every time we cross into the "Evergreen" state near the Tri Cities. Maybve they count those power lines as evergreens? 

We drove a total of 2900 miles and spent $412 on gas. We were gone for about 12.5 days. We went to 3 National Parks.  The kids played on 5 beaches. We saw all license plates except 5. They were the usual suspects (Rhode Island, West Virginia, Hawaii, Kentucky and South Carolina). 

Carson City and Desert Scenes

We made it to Nevada!! 

We spent the night at a nice Best Western in Gardnerville. 

The next morning, we drove through Carson City. Of course we decided to stop and visit the capital! 

At the state of Nevada museum. 

This is a description of how Nevada became a state just before the election of 1864. They almost didn't get to vote in the election because the post office lost the state constitution they mailed to Washington D.C. They had to type it out in morse code to get it there on time. 

Downtown Carson City was really pretty! 

We then drove through Reno and had lunch at a park. We spent the rest of the day driving through the desert. There was some very pretty scenery! 

Lake Mono

We crossed the Sierra Nevadas and were now at the start of the Great Basin. 

This is Lake Mono. 

After touring the Lake Mono visitor's center and walking around a bit, we headed off for the Nevada border! 

We drove through some really pretty scenery where we could see the Sierra Nevadas to the west. 

Tioga Pass

After visiting the Yosemite Valley, my plan was to drive across Tioga Pass and head over into Nevada. We sure got lucky. Tioga Pass opened for the year on July 1 and we were there on July 1! Yikes! One day earlier and we would have had to detour out of our way. 

We headed up Tioga Pass. We wanted to try to see some large Sequoya trees. However, to hike to the grove, you had to hike downhill 1 mile which meant hiking uphill a mile to get back. We had just finished hiking the 3 mile Mirror Trail hike round trip so we skipped the big trees. 

Heading up Tioga Pass, we were at nearly 10,000 feet. There was still snow on the sides of the pass on July 1. The kids thought it was great! They had never seen snow in July before so they got out to throw some around. It was very deserted up there. Maybe people didn't know it was open yet? 

We got to a lookout where you could look out across the valley and see Half Dome. It was chilly up at 10,000 feet! I had to grab my fleece. 

If you look behind us, you can see Half Dome way back there. 

The kids and Jeremy crawled around on these large rocks. 

We also go to see the pretty Tuolumne Meadows. 

We then had to drive down a steep windy pass into the great basin. 

Yosemite National Park

We got up early the next morning to try to make it to Yosemite before it got too busy. We were going on a Tuesday so we hoped it wasn't too bad. 

We came through the tunnel and there was plenty of room at the Tunnel View parking lot! We stopped to admire the view and take pictures. The sun hadn't been up there long and so it was in our eyes. 

Tunnel View

Tunnel View

Tunnel View

El Capitan

Pretty water with Yosemite Falls in the background. 

Yosemite Falls

Yosemite Falls

Yosemite Falls

Luckily, we found parking easily. We got on the shuttle bus with our backpacks full of food and water and started to ride along. We would get out and look at the sites and do some of the shorter hikes. 

This was the close up at Yosemite Falls

We rode around to the Mirror Lake trail. Supposedly, you would get the best views of Half Dome from here. We did the hike to Mirror Lake and then back to the shuttle stop. 

Mirror Lake

Half Dome. We figured there were tiny little people up there climbing the side and we just couldn't see them! 

It was a long hike and people were getting tired. We had gotten up much earlier than normal too. 

Mirror Lake

A hiker with his pretty floral backpack. 

After we rode the bus around and saw most of the main stops, we headed up to Tioga Pass. As we were leaving, we noticed there was no where to park.  Good thing we did get there early!