Fourth of July BUST!!

On Saturday, we drove to the base of Yosemite Park. You can't come all this way to go to Yosemite without actually getting to the base of it. It was about a 30 mile drive. Back home, when something is 30 miles away you get there in about 30 mintues. Not here. No sir. It took us about 1 1/2 hours what with all the winding roads. What beauty around these parts!! Again, it was too amazing for words.
We hiked to the base of the small Yosemite Falls (I know I'm not naming everything correctly.) and basically just stood in awe and appreciation of what surrounded us.

I'm so glad to have been able to go there but it was WAY too crowded for my liking. Too much traffic and too many people.
We got back to our cabin around 2:30 and Bob, Logan, Emmy, and I took a hike to a swimming hole and waterfall. Nothing is close by out here. Everything requires a decent hike or drive. This was no exception! It was a 1 1/2 mile walk through some great woods to get to our destination. Again, no complaints since the scenery was so great! We finally made it to the falls, although I nearly turned back when it go very, very steep but I'm glad I conquered my fears and continued.
Once at the falls we just climbed around on the rocks, played in the cool water, and refilled our water bottles with some pure spring water. It was a lovely adventure.

We had dinner at the restuarant at the lodge and had our evening smores. That particular night the lodge was showing Ice Age on an outdoor screen so Bob and Emmy hung around for that. We've had such a nice trip.
Sunday we got packed up and headed back to SF for our Fourth of July celebration.
We arrived back at the hotel and hung around for a few hours. We headed back in to the city early to get good seating at the fireworks.
We decided not to drive thru that mess of traffic but to take the city's rapid transit system, called the BART. We paid the nearly $100 for round trip tickets for the 6 of us and got there 2 hours early for good seats. We had been told the fireworks would be going off on Treasure Island so from anywhere on the dock you would be able to see them. After waiting for 2 hours in the cold wind they started. They were setting them off on Pier 39 which was WAY down the dock from where we were. There were thousands and thousands of people there and there was no way we could get to Pier 39 in time so...we missed them.
We were severely disappointed to say the least. I know how much my kids and Bob and I were looking forward to this once in a lifetime experience and we were pretty upset.
So here it is, our last day in SF. We still have a few things on our list to knock out, with hopefully, no more disappointments.

Yesterday,