Mariposa Pines and Wawona

 It was our final day to explore Yosemite!!  We left the "close by" things for our final full day and it worked out perfectly!

First on the agenda was to go to Mariposa Pines which has the large redwood trees!  I was really excited to do this as I've seen the pictures of them and couldn't wait to walk among them!

Because we had the handicapped sticker, we were allowed to drive the first part of it, where all the other people had to take the shuttle - that was really nice!

It was a nice walk up to the "Grizzly Giant"!  This tree is enormous!!  The base circumference is 96 ft!!!  It is 2995 years old and is 209 ft tall!!!  WOW!!

As you can tell by our shirts, it was cooler today than the past 2 days!!  What a relief!!!  90 degrees was much better than 96!!

We all took individual pics in front of this amazing tree!

All 4 of us went for a short hike and we saw this set of trees which is called The Bachelor and Three Graces!

This is called The Fallen Monarch - gosh was that tree huge!

 

Marilyn and Karen decided to stay at the welcome center while Amy and I decided to take one more trail - it was up, up, up for our walk which we weren't aware of but it was a great hike and we enjoyed it!!

What fun to see these huge sequoia trees!!

Back to the house for lunch and then we did the History Center Tour, right there in Wawona where our cabin is!  It was a walk around outside tour on our own and I loved the covered bridge!

We saw lots of cabins with history about each one and inside the old horse barn was this carriage!!  Also an old timer who loved answering your questions and visiting!

Then it was off to The Swinging Bridge which involved a hike to the creek - it was a nice walk and the bridge was fun to cross!  It was pretty darn warm out by this time!

The creek water was beautiful and so clear - Marilyn had brought her swimsuit so she cooled off in the water while the rest of us sat in the shade!

I rolled my capris up as I didn't bring any shorts to wear!!  Worked just fine!

Marilyn was up for cooking dinner that evening and cooked a pasta with a tomato based veggie sauce and it was delicious!  Unfortunately a mouse or mice found our cabin sometime during the day and proceeded to eat most of our crackers and snacks - darn!!  Good thing it was the last day or we would have had to go grocery shopping again!!  We put the remainder of our snacks in the frig for the night!

Saturday morning we were up early as had to leave by 8:00 to get back to the airport in Fresno!  Amy and I dropped the girls off to get through security while we returned the rental car - easy enough!!  And then we headed into the airport for our flight at 12:15!  I enjoyed my cup of coffee I got there and before we knew it, it was time to board!

I took the middle seat on the way home as it was once again a full flight!  We landed in Denver and rode the shuttle to our parked car and soon were on our way home!  I dropped Amy off in Co. Springs and soon made it to "Home Sweet Home"!!  A great trip with friends!!