Yosemite National Park, California

Rocks.  If you asked me to describe Yosemite in one word, that's what it would be.

Not the most poetic of ways to describe it I suppose and, of course, I'm selling the undeniable majesty of this place short by doing so.  But in fairness, huge granite cliffs and domes are the main features of the 7 square mile Yosemite Valley.

In a way, I have to force myself to look at Yosemite objectively.  We've had our breath taken away by all kinds of incredible sights on this trip (both metaphorically and literally, considering some places have been 9000ft above sea level where the air is noticeably thinner).  When pitted head-to-head against them, I would say Yosemite is one of my least favourite of the national parks we've visited.  Having said that, if I lived within driving distance and wanted to get away from it all for the weekend and be reminded of what nature can do, Yosemite would be a great place to do that.

As soon as the announcement came that the government shutdown was over and the parks were open again, we set off for Yosemite anticipating that it would be teeming with people who had had the same idea.  Unfortunately we were about five hours away and with sunset getting earlier and earlier, we knew we would be arriving in the dark.  We stopped for the night just short of the entrance at somewhere that claimed to be an RV park.

I say "claimed" because basically, I think they'd just put up a sign pointing down the hillside and then stuck site-numbering posts in the ground wherever people tended to skid to a halt.  There was no discernible driveway through the campground and I pulled off some of my most interesting manoeuvres yet.  At one point, with the nose of the RV perilously close to a tree in front on a downhill, I had to gauge exactly how hard to stamp on the pedal to make sure reverse gear engaged quick enough to avoid rolling forward into the tree, but without flying backwards so far that I ended up in the huge ditch behind me.  You know things are bad when you actually consider using, in real life, some of the algebra you were taught in Maths classes at school...

Fortunately in the end, the campground owner came out and showed us to a site.  She shouted "Is this one OK?" and seemed to accept "Anything to avoid driving around this hellhole in the dark any more!" as a satisfactory response.

The next day, after somehow hauling ourselves back up the hill and out of the RV park, we entered the national park and checked in at a campground just inside the park entrance.  Shortly after the campground, you're confronted with a descent of around 7000ft into Yosemite Valley along cliffside roads with very little separating you from certain death should you accidentally drive through the barrier.  This is NOT somewhere you want your brakes to fail!  Nice views though!

There's evidence all around of the wildfire that consumed 371 square miles of the park earlier this year:

Having made it to the bottom in one piece, we parked up somewhere along the valley loop road and went for a walk.  The loop road is only a couple of miles long and you can see most of Yosemite's popular features from wherever you stop.

This is America, it's not just the burgers that are huge!

In years with particularly heavy rainfall, the entire valley can flood.

We next headed for Glacier Point, which essentially involved driving up the other side of the valley and eventually looking down on where you'd just come from.

Feeling surprised that we'd managed to get round Yosemite in a single day, but mindful that we would lose the light soon, we once again made the descent down the valley to start heading back to our campsite.  I was actually starting to feel light-headed from all the climbing and descending we were doing, and apparently Winnie wasn't too keen either.  Remember when I said you do not want your brakes to fail around here?  Well guess what happened next.  I touched the brake pedal and it went right to the floor and the RV displayed no intention of slowing down whatsoever.  I probably could have stopped quicker by shoving my feet through the floor panel and digging my heels in, Fred Flintstone style.

Fortunately we'd already reached the bottom of the valley by this point and started ascending again towards our campsite, so were travelling uphill at the time.  As we rolled pathetically to a halt at the side of the road, a warning light eventually illuminated itself on the dashboard, accompanied by a loud beep, and a helpful message on the display gave me a detailed technical explanation for what had just happened:

"BRAKE FAILURE".

I suppose I must be quite clever because somehow I'd already figured this out, around the same time as I noticed that stamping on the brakes like a demented line-dancer was summoning all the stopping power of a mosquito in a wind tunnel.

Suspecting that the brake fluid had boiled, we let the brakes cool for a while and then crawled back to the campsite.  A few days later when I was finally able to change the brake fluid, the old stuff that came out was basically jet-black and I suspect it had never been changed since the vehicle was manufactured 8 years ago.  All those contaminants massively reduce the boiling point of the fluid, causing the brake fade we experienced.

A lot of people have said how envious they are of us doing this trip, so for their benefit, here's a pic of me apparently contemplating suicide by dirty brake fluid: proof that it's not all fun and games!