Wednesday, June 12th, 2013
The campsite has all the amenities I could possibly want, cold running water, washroom facilities with electricity ( so you can plug in a hair dryer, although I wouldn’t know anything about that ) located near the tent, pay showers ( $3.62/shower) laundry, groceries, gas, a restaurant 2 miles away and a diner 3 miles from the Bridge Bay campsite. This is luxury camping. But there is no cell service at the sight, although there is some coverage in various areas of the park. Wifi is only available to hotel guests so it gave me an opportunity to electronically detox!
I got up shortly after daylight, refreshed myself, straightened a few things out and then went for breakfast. I arrived at the diner at 7:20 am, 10 minutes before it opened. As I left the diner, there was a bear sighting in the area so I looked around for a little while, but he was already gone, so I headed north to see some waterfalls. The canyon,the Upper and Lower waterfalls were all spectacular.
The Tower Falls which are a little farther north weren’t as impressive, in comparison, but still worth the trip to see.
On my way to the falls a number of cars were blocking the roadway as the got out to take pictures of a small black bear, a short distance from the roadway. I chose not to add to the congestion by stopping. There were more traffic slowdowns, mainly by tourists taking pictures of bison…I’ve seen enough of them by now!
As I left Tower Falls, I saw storm clouds rolling in, so I headed to Canyon Village for a bite to eat and to wait out the storm.
At one point there was a slow moving car ahead of me, so I sped past him at at a blistering 35 mph to get to the village before the lightening started. It wasn’t long before a thunderstorm hit the area but it was short-lived and I headed back to the campsite to see if I could reserve a campsite for a third day.
After reserving a campsite for another night, rain clouds rolled in and we had intermittent rain for the rest of the afternoon and early evening so I took time to relax.
Ralf Hamm 