There are no washing facilities at this particular motel, but their sister-motel 7 miles up the road has them. So after a sleep-in, then a short walk down beside the Merced River and a good brekkie on the terrace outside our room, we headed up the valley to the next motel to do our washing.
Then it was back up into the valley proper to try to find some wireless internet access. After much asking and blank stares - a lot of the staff are temp itinerants - we were directed to the Yosemite Lodge. The nice desk-clerk gave me access apologetically saying it doesn't work very well. He was right there. I managed to log on for about a minute then it dropped out and no more access.
Back at our motel again I managed to get a few minutes at a kiosk at 20c per minute. Work that out for an hour. I just had time to leave a message and almost get my email for a dollar.
The currency here is mad. All the coins are different sizes with no format like small to large. No dollar or two dollar coins. No two dollar notes either. But they still use one cent pieces and with their add-on tax to everything, the final price always includes an odd number of cents. No rounding up or down, exact money please. So the upshot is you end up with a heap of one cent coins, a heap of one dollar notes and a mass of coins that do nothing but confuse. In the touristy areas it is ok as the staff are pretty used to people just handing out a bunch of coins and taking what they need, but everywhere else we have to work it out.
We did notice as we rode around today that the air was quite hazy. There must be fires around, but nothing in here. Yesterday was a little hazy but photos still came out well. Today wouldn't have been as good
John and Kaz did their own thing today as well and we met for beer and chippies late afternoon before dinner in the diner.
Only a few photos today:
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| This is our motel on the Merced River which runs down the Yosemite valley |
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| The river is probably a raging torrent after a snow melt. |
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| But a lovely quiet stream at the moment. |
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| An attack-squirrel? |