EE & S Adventures

Having spent yesterday in Yosemite Valley, today we started by spending the early morning at the top of Yosemite.  Glacier Point sits at the end of a long dead end drive 1km above the valley floor overlooking Yosemite village.  From Glacier Point a tremendous view stretches down Yosemite Valley and across to Half Dome and beyond.  It was a little hazy in places but still stupendous to enjoy the view in the early morning. We saw some coyotes by the side of the road near Glacier Point.  They looked completely fearless of the car and probably (sadly) have worked out that the presence of humans mean food sources are nearby.  The parks preach strongly about the importance of keeping food away from the animals (especially bears) but obviously it's hard to secure everything. We took a short 1 mile walk up to the top of Sentinel Dome, about 2 miles back along the one way road to Glacier Point.  This was our high point in the park (in altitude). ...

So onward to our final US National Park.  Yet another famous destination.  Yosemite.  Home of some of the worlds most famous big wall rock climbs.  Being low season we got a great deal on a hotel just outside the park in the small town of El Portal which gave us a few days to explore without the necessity of excessive driving. Day 1 we headed into the park without much of a plan.  After a few roadside stops by the river we reached Bridal Veil Falls (a popular name for a waterfall in the USA we have discovered!).  It's low season for waterfalls in Yosemite but enough water was flowing to make for some attractive photos.  Eric and Samuel rock scrambled up the lightly flowing creek beyond the end of the trail while Elise waited behind (we weren't doing anything forbidden, just ignoring lots of warnings about the dangers of slippery rocks).  The extra scramble was so much fun Samuel wanted to return the next day for more. Not far from th...

Today was our second wine tasting adventure. We travelled north and investigated two wineries near St Helena.  First-up was at a castle. The owner, like other crazy, imaginative wine makers, imported all the stones and techniques to create his 107 room castle from Italy. It took him a number of years to import and build this castle with a moat, chapel and dining room etc. He even imported that famous Italian bird the emu, to play in the garden. I found it interesting and pretty but preferred the crazy ideas of the cube building in the Barossa. The wines were nice but not outstanding. Samuel had a chocolate tasting which he enjoyed. His took considerably less time that our tasting of five wines.  As Eric mentioned, we are enjoying the whites and today we learned that they make them in vats which have electronically controlled temperature systems, cooling them and protecting them from the heat of the area. After the castle we went to another winery with a ...

For the final leg of our USA holiday within a holiday it was off to California.  We flew into Oakland and picked up a car for a six day trip into the countryside.  Three nights in Napa Valley followed by three nights in Yosemite seemed to be a good way to finish up. After obtaining four hard earned free winery tasting vouchers by attending a timeshare presentation, on our first day of exploration from Napa we headed west to an area of vineyards near the town of Sonoma.  With Eric driving we wisely limited ourselves to two tastings for the journey.  Incidentally the blood alcohol limit for driving in California is 0.08 but I shudder to think what it would be like behind the wheel with that much booze under the belt! As noted, tastings in Napa are not free - actually they can be very pricey if you choose the high end bottles but they are generous (hence the caution about driving).  Both wineries were extremely nice and were we at home we would certainly ...

The final two days of the cruise were sea days as we steamed across the Caribbean from Falmouth back to Galveston.  As with most ship days they were busy.  I continued my intense exercise program until collecting a minor injury on the last full day of the voyage playing basketball with Samuel. Samuel was enjoying the kids club even more in the last days of the trip as he made some friends. Somehow his art skills have improved as we discovered when he checked out of the club one night. The last formal night saw Elise bring out another dress she picked up in Houston - hopefully both her dresses will survive in our luggage until our next cruise in Singapore.  The dinner that night was excellent.  The previous day I had eaten a great lamb shank and our waiter, on hearing I couldn't eat a lobster tail for dinner (my shellfish allergy) managed to rustle up a second one for the next evening even though lamb wasn't on the menu.  After dinner the wait staff even pu...