Today we visited the Nevada Capitol in Carson City. It is a small building in comparison to most capitols.
We were told by the security guard to enjoy our walk through the building, This statue is on the first floor in the center of the building. It recognizes the influence of Native Americans on the history of Nevada.
The architecture of the building includes marble, wood and plaster. It is different from the larger capitols that we have seen. The legislature has moved to separate quarters. Most of the space is now used as a museum.
This area labeled Battle Born Hall recounts the story of Nevada’s quick entry into the United States. Nevada joined just before the 1864 presidential election. Nevada used “modern” technology to transmit the proposed state constitution to Washington. They sent the entire document by telegraph. Over 16,000 words long, it is the largest telegraph ever sent. It took over seven hours to transmit in morse code.
Why all this effort? Nevada was a key state in the election of 1864.
One of the old legislative rooms has been converted into a very nice public meeting room.
We left Carson City as we headed south toward Yosemite National Park. When we got to Mono Lake, we turned west toward Yosemite.
It was a steep and gorgeous climb up the mountains to the 10,000 foot elevation of Tioga Pass.
This is Tioga Lake near the eastern entrance to Yosemite.
We arrived at Yosemite National Park at the top of the pass.
We spent the afternoon at Tuolumne Meadows. The elevation is about 8,600 feet.
Tuolumne Meadows is much cooler than the Yosemite Valley floor. It still provides magnificent views of the surrounding mountains and lakes.
We hiked a short trail to Soda Springs and Parson’s Lodge. The lodge is a small museum about the meadow area. The structure below was built in the late 1800’s to protect the Soda Springs from animals. It is still standing, but the door and windows are no longer there. You can see the water bubbling up from the spring.
As we walked back toward the visitor center we took some photos of the creek and the surrounding meadow.
This is where our second camera got its lens damaged. Even though we made sure to close the lens every time we moved, we learned that it also needs to be in a carry bag rather than in some one’s hand. The rest of the trip we will be using our recently acquired new cell phones for our pictures.
The views from the meadow are spell binding. It was very tempting to just sit here for the rest of the afternoon.
If we had known what was just a little way down the hill, we just might have spent the afternoon in the meadow. About a half mile down the road we found a traffic jam caused by road construction.
As we slowly drove down the mountain after a long wait, we saw some large rock formations.
Our next planned stop was a hike to Tenaya Lake. We took a wrong turn at the beginning of our hike. On this detour we saw a deer in a meadow. We hiked about ten minutes down the wrong path. We then decided to turn around and head back toward the car. When we saw the deer in the meadow we knew we had doubled back the correct way.
When we got back to the parking lot, we found the correct trail It was very poorly marked. Our trail began about 100 yards down another trail. We are not sure why there was not a marker at the trail head. We were glad we found the lake trail though. It was a refreshing change from all the traffic of the last 30 minutes.
We met a nice lady on the beach of Tenaya Lake. We talked for a while. She offered to take our picture as we got ready to return to our car.
We then took one last look at the lake as the trail went into the woods.
Our next stop was Olmstead Point. It is a short steep walk to a nice overlook of the Yosemite Valley. Here is a picture of Half Dome from a different perspective.
You could also see some of the surrounding mountains.
We also got to look back one more time at Tenaya Lake.
We finished our time at Olmstead Point with a picture of us in front of the valley view.
This is a picture of the climb up the rocks to Olmstead Point. You can climb up the rocks, or you can use the trail with switchbacks. It is a longer but easier ascent. Guess which one we used!
We completed our day with a drive to the Yosemite Valley Lodge. The trip included passing through a tunnel.
There were also many wonderful vistas from the valley floor of the cliffs, mountains and waterfalls.
This is our third time at Yosemite. The crowds are larger. The buildings are more modern and somewhat overdone for the surroundings. But the natural aspects of the park are as amazing as the first time we were here.