When we left the mountains of Sequoia National Park, the smell of the flowers and fruit trees joined us along the road. We drove again through the flowers overwhelmed meadows and the orange & lemon trees. Via the curvy roads of Tolhouse, Auberry, North Fork, Bass Lake and Fish Camp we entered Yosemite National Park. The forest is completely different from Sequoia and the views again spectacular. Because we are in the early season not all roads are open, nevertheless, we enjoyed the drive. Via the Wawona road we had a breathtaking view on the El Capitan and Bridalveil Fall. Based on the advice of a ranger who informed us the weather would change in the next 2 days, we camped at the Upper Pines in Half Dome Village. Luckily we had set-up the tarp in due time, because the weather change started more quickly than expected. It started with rain and in the morning there was a manly 10cm of snow on the motorbikes 😊 (in fact 3 cm). As it snowed all day long on Monday, it was the perfect opportunity to do some hiking into the park. We did the mirror lake trail and via the valley loop trail we also visited the lower Yosemite falls. The view over the sentinel meadow was a bit blurred by the weather. The snow and cold made our visit special to the park. It was a free once in a lifetime opportunity (right time on the right spot). Tuesday morning was an unexpectedly freezing morning, even the locks of our paniers were frozen and the tarp almost broke in pieces of the ice! (it had been -5°C at night). Around 10am the sun arrived and everything was warming up so we were able to break down the camp and leave around noon at 7°C. As we had planned the service for Jaak and Mieke in Las Vegas, we had to return back to the south via the 140 and 49 until Oakhurst. There we took the 41 and freeway 99 to stop in Visalia, where we camped at a KOA campsite. On Wednesday morning we continued along the freeway 99 and crossed again the Mojave desert (in opposite direction) to arrive late in the afternoon in Las Vegas. We couldn’t resist to our desire to drive with both GSs on the famous Strip. After the check-in in our hotel, we went to downtown Las Vegas to the fabulous Fremont Street where we enjoyed the extravaganza of the humankind 😊. We had a beer at the container park of Las Vegas and at a piano bar… relaxing evening. Today we brought the 2 motorbikes at the Eurocycle Las Vegas garage for the 6000miles service and spent the rest of the day making changes to our roadtrip. At late afternoon we were happy to see Jaak and Mieke again in good shape. The service at the Eurocycles was very professional and the service manager did a great job and understood very well the meaning of the word ‘service’. Jaak needs to return in one week for a sensor change. Long live the electronics! Not really an issue as we will pass Vegas again in one week of our death valley trip. The evening was a typical Vegas activity: wandering up and down the Strip and being amazed about the fact that when fake is so good fake it becomes real.
