4th of July. KT borrowed the shower in my brother’s hotel room and then we were off. The van was quite dirty, so stop one after a joint breakfast and farewell to my brother was to wash the van.
We were so close to Mono Lake, so we stopped briefly to check it out.
Next up in our western national parks tour was Yosemite, a place KT has fond memories of from many family trips in his childhood. I had never been. At the time, reservations were required and I couldn’t get one, so we waited near the entrance until after 4pm, when reservations weren’t required. With our shiny new park pass, we were able to breeze past the line – nice perk.
You can’t camp in Yosemite without a campground/cabin reservation, so we knew we had to leave before dark, so kind of speed-ran the tour. We had to get home by the next day for an appliance delivery we were unable to reschedule. But by the end of the day, we were pretty tired, so thought we’d try Wallydocking at a nearby Walmart (camping in the Walmart parking lot). It’s something many van life people do, but not something we had yet done (and 4 years later, I can still say that’s true!).
But, the sign denied us. So we drove the rest of the way home to Northern California and arrived late at night.
Arrived home to one ornery cat and an unwatered plant that magnificently bloomed. It was warmer than usual for the coast, but visibility was about 20 feet lol. Back in the fog! Ornery cat tried making up for lost time with love given and I ended up with love scratches on my face and hands. I determined to get the propane fixed on the van and an oil change so she’d be ready for the next trip! At this point, we’d now had it for just under a year and put 25,000 miles on it!
