We're sitting in the parlor outside our bedroom listening to the famous Tom Bopp play old-fashioned favorites on the grand piano brought (kidnapped) to the hotel via a manure truck from Curry Village in Yosemite Valley. Mr. Bopp's fame is second only to El Capitan and Bridle Veil Falls here at the Wawona Hotel. The room is furnished in the style of the time the hotel was built: sturdy Victorian. Tom gets applause after every tune. The least rapt audience member is the guy writing about it on his MacBook. And he's charmed and delighted.

Yesterday, while we were hiking through meadows in Yosemite Valley they switched us from our shower-included room in the Moore Cottage, #87 (right below the haunted room) to a bedroom off the parlor of the lobby. It seemed like very bad luck until Tom explained to us that the room was originally Estella Hill Washburn's, the daughter of Thomas Hill, of Yosemite history, who came to Yosemite to heal his Tuberculosis, paint and die (which he did several years later at 90-something). Estella fell in love with John Washburn, the hotel manager and married him. And now we're sleeping their room. So that's just fine, as long as management doesn't mind us traipsing through the lobby in our hotel-provided bathrobes (or as Sam did this morning at 2:30, in his underwear).

But enough about lodging. Let's talk food. All food seems to cost $20. Except for breakfast, which is free. And Bombay Sapphire Martinis, straight up, cost $7.50. Sweet.

Our first tour of Yosemite was local. Our lodging is in the southern portion of the park where we were able to view Sequoias just a short shuttle ride away. We opted to take the tram up to the upper grove and hike around there: an informative ride that only stops twice for 10 minutes, once on the way up and once on the way down. Most people take that first stop as an opportunity to use the restroom. We used the first stop to leave the tour altogether and get up-close and personal with the trees and hiking trails. Most hikes in Yosemite go up and down and up and up. Sam was exhausted when we got back to the tram stop five hours later. The tram was full and we couldn't get on. So I chatted up a family and the dad wanted to hike down as much as I did and so Sam hopped on, Larry and John hiked down and we were all happy.

Sunday we drove up north and east. Occasionally we got out of the car to hang out and take photos of intensely beautiful and magnificent places: Tuolumne Meadow, Olmstead Point, Sierra Lake, and our destination, Mono Lake, outside the park. It was a day of strangely coincided nature: lakes turning into meadows, lush meadows surrounded by barren ledges, a bright blue salt lake with sandstone towers (tufas) rising from it. And my "secret" dinner destination: the Whoa Nellie Deli. A chef left his restaurant in NYC, bought a Mobil gas station outside Yosemite's East Gate and opened up a fabulous restaurant serving great food, kitschy souvenirs and gasoline. All the while a band plays out front. Fabulous.

Eight-tenths of a mile can sure be long when you're hiking up hill in the blazing heat of Yosemite Valley. We took the Wawona Shuttle to the valley two days in a row to get a good idea of what's down there. And so we did. Not a lot of hiking but a relaxing walk through a beautiful flower-bedecked meadow, a hike up to Vernal Falls. Well, almost all the way up. And an attempt at Lower Yosemite Falls. Beautiful place, Yosemite Valley. And lots and lots of people. We met some of those people on the shuttle into the valley. The ride was a little over an hour each way, so we had time to get to know the history of some folk in nearby seats and trade stories. On our second trip into the valley, we met a quartet from Iowa and another quartet from Ithaca, NY. At one inspiring point, Sam burst into "America, the Beautiful," I joined in as did the two quartets: in 4-part harmony. Needless to say, the ride back was on the wings of song.

There are a couple of aspects of Yosemite that I've never heard mentioned. One is the wild animal hysteria that park personnel create. In our weeklong stay, we saw two deer and a hundred squirrels and chipmunks. No bear and no mountain lion. Yet every day we'd pass signs about how speeding kills bears. "The orange markers denote where a bear was killed," our evening astronomer informed us. We read warnings about feeding bears and instructions on how to scare mountain lions away. One waitress in the dining room replied, after I told her how freaked I am running around the 3.5 mile Wawona Meadow Loop replied, "you don't really have to worry as much about the bears as you do the mountain lions; they don't scare as easily." Thanks for the advice. So, instead of every rock being a bear, every bush became a mountain lion. Yay. Thoughts on how I could stretch out my t-shirt to make myself look as large as possible pervaded my runs. I think park workers tell tourists these tales to add to the thrill factor of the park. And to amuse themselves.

And the smell. No one has ever mentioned the smell of Yosemite. (Maybe Sam and I are the only two people I know who have been there.) It's an acrid smell. And earthy. Like incense. Not unpleasant, it's kind of good, that is if it's the smell of sequoias and earth and nature. But if it's the smell of burning tires or a decomposing bear nearby, that's bad. Kind of like getting the last room available in the hotel and learning that it's historic.