15 Reasons To Love California – part 3

I can’t believe it’s soon a month since I got on that plane to San Francisco. Time really flies by these days so I’d better be careful how I spend it…

8. Yosemite’s National Park waterfalls

When it comes to Yosemite National Park, John Muir is right – again: “it is by far the grandest of all special temples of Nature I was ever permitted to enter.”  Granite cliffs, sequoia groves, rivers, and waterfalls in the valley, glacially carved landscape come together into intricate yet fascinating embroidery.

The Yosemite Valley waterfalls look spectacular even during dry season.

Bridalveil Falls

Bridalveil Fall is famous for the mist that wafts off it when the breezes blow. The Ahwahneechee tribe believed that it was home to a vengeful spirit named Pohono which guarded the entrance to the valley, and that those leaving the valley must not look directly into the waterfall lest they be cursed. They also believed that inhaling the mist of Bridalveil Fall would improve one’s chances of marriage.

Upper & Lower Yosemite Falls

Yosemite Falls is the tallest in North America, ten times taller than Niagara and nearly twice as tall as the Empire State Building. The lower fall, which I saw up close on this hike, is the shortest section of the fall, but it measures still 320 feet (98 meters) high.

9.   Cool Americans

I have made up my mind! Even when they are queuing for a picture with ol’ General Sherman Tree, or climbing the rocks to get closer to waterfall’s veil or scream from the top of their lungs at their children: “just hand over that camera, at least it’ll be me who breaks it, not you!”

Here are some cool people I either met or noticed during my 12-day trip in California:

* The airport security officer in the Portland airport who winked at me and forgot to put the exit date on the admittance stamp on my passport

* Portland airport staff member who greeted me in my mother tongue language

* The tattooed, Rasta hair guy at Yosemite

Rasta & tattooed go together

* The old lady in a wheelchair in a supermarket who started a conversation just like that

* The shop assistant in a Monterey pharmacy who told me that I could always return the hair-care products I purchased only because she didn’t try them herself and had no clue if they were good or not

* The bass player & half naked drummer rocking hard at a Union Square street corner, in San Francisco

San Francisco kind of cool

* Everybody who greeted me with a smile and a sincere “how are you doing?”

10. Caring people  for friendly animals 

Mule deer having their feast in the lush bushes near sidewalk while tourists stop to look in awe and take pictures, ground squirrels excavating burrows, seagulls eating bread from my hand at Embarcadero and swans accepting biscuits from people at the Palace of Fine Arts, in San Francisco. I felt blessed!