Rick & Julie's Travel Blog: Day 20 - Saturday 8/17/13 Yosemite-Oakhurst-Mariposa-Yosemite, CA (157 miles)

Pioneer Yosemite History Center
A home moved from elsewhere in the park.

Because of the high traffic that builds throughout the day, we opted for an early morning adventure that began at the "Pioneer Yosemite History Center" where in the 1950s, the park service moved about a dozen buildings, that were scattered across the park, down to the southern end. How they accomplished that feat is a mystery to us given the wild terrain, windy & narrow steep roads and frail structures, but they did. The entire park service has 1, ONE stagecoach driver employed (named Buckeye) and he's here in Yosemite at the center, driving the coach. It's quite cool to see and he's a character.

After that, we walked over to one of the two historic hotels in the park, Hotel Wawona. Just roll back the hands of time if you ever visit here; it's that cool!

Buckeye & his team.

Temperatures built, gaining speed as the dial approached the 100's again today while we ventured down out of the south side of the park on Rt. 41 (weavey windy fun) through the Sierra National Forest and on to some small former mining towns. We took the local's advice and visited many places including the State of California Mining and Mineral Museum at the Mariposa County Fairgrounds. For any rock hounds out there, it was a very interesting visit.

We ventured up the west side of the park, following the Merced River along Rt. 140. On the opposite side of the river, you could see the abandoned RR bed, as it curved along for miles. Several areas of the former RR track had succumbed to mud slides and slump into the river. We were very surprised when the road took an official detour over the river on a temporary bridge to the old RR bed. Well!..come to realize our the road, our road, had been totally obliterated by a huge landslide sometime recently. Good thing we delayed our trip by a few weeks - who knows what may have happened!

Historic Wawona Hotel

We made it back to the road side of the river by the time we re-entered the park. Following that river upstream into Yosemite Valley was magnificent. The beauty of the rock formations and cliffs will take your breath away. We saw Half Dome and El Capitan, fox, coyote, and a deer with her fawn.

The abandoned RR bed.

While in the valley, we stopped for a beverage ($23 for 1 beer and 1 margarita) at the historic Yosemite hotel, Ahwahnee. We didn't enjoy the price, but we did enjoy strolling through the hotel's grand public spaces. This, we're told, was the first grand national park hotel, and the one which all others were modeled after.