The Adventures of Sock Monkey Season 2 Episode 1: Hotel California...sort of...ish...not really... Day 5

   Hallo, dear readers! And I am back with more amazing flying-ninja-sock-monkey-ness so read on, dedicated readers, read on! ;)

   We got up the next morning and I actually managed to not ace-plant on the bottom of the stairs as I went down. I blame my sore legs. And I am blame my sore legs on the hike yesterday. But it was worth it. Anyway. We stopped by the lodge and had a breakfast of blueberries, yogurt, oatmeal, and other things, while we watched mule deer have their breakfast of various tree leaves. See below. 

Gotcha!

After breakfast, we took the shuttle to the visitor center and I bought the Junior Ranger booklet (Bought!! Refer to the over-commercializing comment on Day 4.) and after filling some of the booklet out, we headed to the theater to watch the two movies about Yosemite and how it was created that they show. After watching both of the movies, we decided to take some "relaxing" hikes (*cough* yeah right *cough*). We took a shuttle to Lower Yosemite Falls Trailhead and we hiked the 1 mi (1.6 km) loop trail. See below for pictures. We headed back to the visitor center after that to get my Junior Ranger badge. And my dad got one. The badges were made out of (I think) recycled wood. But it's cool anyways. I'll add the educational stuff at the end. We still had some extra time after that so after some various shuttle hopping, we headed off to hike to Mirror Lake. Which actually isn't a lake. But I won't get into specifics. The Mirror Lake Loop itself is 5 mi (8 km) but we only went to the lake and back so that's around 2 mi (3.2 km). The hike there was nice and cool (temperature-wise), but keep in mind that the trail is shared by horse-riders also. See below for pictures. And I'll add a trail map of them both so you can get a glimpse of what we hiked. After the hike to Mirror Lake, we took a shortcut across the improvised bridge of tree branches and headed back to the trailhead via the road. We were on our way back when we saw a bunch of people pointing at something in the trees so we stopped to get a closer look and it was a bear. Well, two bears, actually. A mother bear and her cub. But still!!! It was super cool. Ok. Pictures, now.

Lower Yosemite Falls

Chillin' like a (not so) villain...

Spock at Mirror Lake...

...Sock Monkey at Mirror Lake.

Sock on rock...

...Spock on rock.

The monkeys go flying one by one...

Wanna piece me?!

Staring contest!

What we hiked and the main places we went are highlighted in yellow.

We shuttle-hopped back to Curry Village afterwards and had pizza (yet again) for dinner. Because its good. Especially after hiking. So, I'm getting to the end of this post, so check the comment board and actually put stuff there, please. Other than that, thanks for reading! Sock Monkey and Spock wish you well!




Ok. Now, for the educational part. Borrowed/Adapted from the Yosemite National Park Junior Ranger Handbook. Mostly.

1) Black bears can only be black.  True/False
2) Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant, which set aside Yosemite Valley and its vicinity as protected land.  True/False
3) The native people who lived (and some still live) in Yosemite Valley call themselves the Ahwaneechees.  True/False
4) A Sugar Pine cone is usually 11 inches or shorter.  True/False
5) Giant Sequoia cones are very big.  True/False
6) Sock monkeys are very epic  True/True 

Ok, the last question wasn't in the booklet. But you can still answer it. That concludes the informational section of this post. For more information concerning Yosemite National Park, click here.
Thanks for reading, people of earth and intergalactic space!