#PhotoOfTheDay is of the dining room at the Ahwahnee in Yosemite National Park. A gorgeous place to eat and the food is good too, as you would expect.
I love the Ahwahnee but damn it's expensive. We got our room at half price which helped a lot at the time!
@croyle I think I stayed there once, but it was a really long time ago.
I also took the moonlight photo tour. They loaded us and our cameras and tripods onto an open tram and drove us to various points where we could see the rocks and peaks in the light of a full moon. I still remember seeing pinpoints of light on the rock face of El Capitan where climbers were bedded down, hanging in hammocks for the night. Magic!
@mlanger Yosemite has always been magic for me! It's still my favorite place on Earth.
@croyle I think I've only been there maybe three times. Sadly, I'm really turned off by the crowds at National Parks these days.
@mlanger Crowds can certainly be an issue. I don't like them either... I forget what the exact number is, but something like 95% of visitors to Yosemite never get much past the valley. The Wawona area is also beautiful, for example. Also visiting in the off season helps. And on that particular visit we took the relatively unknown 4x4 route into the valley, which neatly bypasses most all the road traffic.
@croyle I've been up to Glacier Point, which is mostly ignored by the masses because it's a long drive. But I've also crossed from the park to the Mono Lake area during a late spring snow storm. In my little Honda, which is totally the wrong vehicle for that.
@mlanger I recall one time coming in from the East side over Tioga in my old Jeep and coasting down down down the whole way to the valley. Best mileage that Jeep ever got!