Yosemite

Yosemite is the archetype of American wilderness and nature, there are for sure more beautiful places and definitely more remote places, but the accessibility and infrastructure make it a busy place,  almost like St. Tropez on a august evening!

It is a place worth seeing, enormous granite rocks;

quiet green meadows;

streams to swim in;

waterfalls;

Yosemite is famous to the Belgians since last year Tom Waes climbed El Capitan, it is truly an impressive 1200m high piece of granite!

It is so high that it requires a few days to climb, which makes that people have to sleep against the rock!

We added a few animals to our list: a black bear in an apple tree next to the campsite, he was not really bothered by the dozens of people he had as audience, munching away on apples, quite well hidden in the tree. We heard also bears roaming the campsite at night, trying to outsmart the park rangers who patrolled the camp as well, trying to keep bears and humans separated as much as possible.

and a rattlesnake:

We spent 3 nights in Yosemite, camping in the 'wild', including bears, but the whole valley feels resort-like, there are plenty of activities organized, including painting classes wich Inge, Luka and Emma took, learning how to paint 'fast and loose' .