Essexgirl's Californian Exploits - Part Five:Yosemite

After the cold night, we were surprised how nice the weather was the next day as we drove into Yosemite. We took the long, one way trip up to Glacier Point which was very steep and narrow for the last few miles for some of the most spectacular glacial scenery. Magnificent rocks and cliffs, tall trees and rivers. We later spent some time in Yosemite Village. There was a nice cool stream running by with a natural beach. We wished for more time so that we could have spent some time chilling out by it, but we had already discovered that there was no accommodation available in the NP that night so we decided to see how far we could get outside the park. We took a short walk to Lower Yosemite Falls but they had dried up , which was a bit disappointing.

It was a long drive to get out of the park, the road went on forever climbing up and round hills and mountains, then back down again. At dusk we arrived in Oakdale which appeared to be one of the bigger towns on the area outside Yosemite and on the road to San Francisco. There was a Trailer Park there rather than an RV park but they were full. They directed us to one by Lake Woodward which was just out of town on the right. We spotted the Strawberry sign that he had given us as a point of reference, but did not see a road signposted for this lake (which was on our map), so we drove back and went down the road nearest the sign, but a few miles down the road it turned to gravel and was marked 'Private'. There was no sign indicating an RV park or the lake (which we later discovered was used for a lot of sports so should have been easy to find/be signposted). By this time it was very dark, and we had driven up and down Oakdale several times. We called it quits and went to stay in a Ramada Inn for the night. It was $73 so a lot more expensive than an RV park, but we had a huge bed and a good night's sleep.