"The best-laid plans of mice and men..."

When your planning a trip almost a year in advance, you have to go by what the weather and in this case fall colors have usually been. We fully expected COLD in the Eastern Sierra's and had planned on it, well at least Leon had his fleece britches along. We had a back up plan in case it was windy, but it was windy more than we had back up plans for.



We were looking forward to thawing out in Yosemite, after all other than Saturday, the weather report called for mid 80's in the day and mid 40's at night.



On Friday 10-10-08, we got up to drive over Hwy 120 Tioga Pass, the wind was howling and windshield wiper fluid was frozen in my car. But it was fairly clear and we were happy to be crossing this pass before the rain/snow.



The pass was pretty, but we really should have stopped on the way over on Tuesday 10-7-08 when it was warm and still. Instead was COLD and windy, there was even ice on the still part of the Tuolumne River. We did not have the road work delays that we had on Tuesday, so it was a quicker drive.



We stopped at the Tunnel View to take in Yosemite in its grandeur and then headed to our hotels and campgrounds to get settled in for the day.

Kim and family had just stopped by, their reservations in Curry Village had been cancelled because of a rock slide, we had just finished checking details with Curry and were walking back to the campground when...SNOW. Small flakes started flying, JoJo really enjoyed them and they melted right away. It was a treat to see, but not what we had expected. We are lucky to have crossed Tioga Pass early in the day, the road ended up being closed for the next few days!


Kim got some fun shots of the surprise snow fall and JoJo. We had another fall flurry the next day as well.


My worries about us over heating in Yosemite were gone, instead we were more worried about how we were going to stay warm. I think if we added up 2 days of temps, we might have equalled what the weather forecast suggested.


We had a great time exploring Yosemite National Park's Valley Floor including Half Dome, Tunnel and Valley View, Fern Spring, the Valley Village, Ansel Adams Gallery, Museums and the Ahwahnee Hotel.


Next post: Wawona and the Mariposa Grove Links go to more photos at my photosite www.carolsimages.com