So, today we woke up in our cabin, showered and got ready for a wonderful day at the famous Yosemite National Park!  We entered the park from the West entrance, and drove through the stone arch to enter Yosemite Valley.  Our first stop was the towering Bridalveil Falls, which was not as powerful as usual due to the worst California drought in 130 years.  The waterfall was more mist like, spraying streams of water over the edge of the cliffs and being easily manipulated by an often strong wind.  Neal and Alon climbed a rock mountain to get to the upper falls pool, but the view was definitely worth the struggle.  After being egged on to jump in the pool by a random woman, Neal slipped and cut up his foot.  The pain ended quickly, at least!

After this, we had lunch at Swinging Bridge, a nice picnic and swimming area.  We then drove to the Mirror Lake trailhead to take a leisurely 1 mile hike to Mirror Lake.  The waters were very low due to the drought, but we were treated to a wonderful view of Half Dome.  Half Dome is one of the many spectacular and gigantic rock formations that defines Yosemite.  On the flat side of this mountain, there are various striations and colorations which create the appearance of faces or other figures in the rock.  We agreed that we saw a dolphin in white, but differed on our view of the "Weeping Woman". 

After walking back to the car, we went to the famed Yosemite Falls.  This three stage waterfall is over 2,400 feet and is the tallest in North America.  The low waters provided us with a weaker version of the falls, but also left many rocks previously covered with water to be explored.  Neal and Sivanne climbed a bit, but were too tired to go on.  I climbed the mountain until it became vertical and unclimbable, and got amazing views of the falls.  Being eye level with the top of the lower falls provided me with a view that only comes after a dangerous but worthwhile hike up the rocks.  After trekking back down, I met Sivanne and Neal at the car, and we drove to dinner.  We then went back to our "Yosemite Bug Resort" early and played some board games, worked on the website and got an early sleep!  See you tomorrow!