At the start of the Fourth of July weekend, we drove out of the San Francisco Bay Area, and headed for the first stop on an exciting and long road trip!

We spent the first couple of nights in Oakhurst, 14 miles south of the entrance to Yosemite National Park. On Saturday, we drove into the park to spend the day there.

Yosemite National Park has 1,200 square miles of mountains, waterfalls, meadows and ancient sequoias The views are breathtaking, and there are endless opportunities for walking. If you’re not into hiking in the heat of the summer, you can also to tour the park by car. When you see something interesting, you can get out of the car and follow one of the short trails. These are very accessible, even for families with young children.

We took the opportunity to play a few handbell duets while we were at Yosemite. It was the Fourth of July weekend, so the park was quite busy. That made it a challenge to find a place that wasn’t too crowded with people. We’ve read that four million people visit the park annually – and we became convinced that most of them were there this weekend!

Eventually we found somewhere quiet, and played our handbells for a while. Here’s a recording of “America, the Beautiful”, which seemed appropriate for the holiday weekend:

This was our second trip to Yosemite since Carla moved to California in 2012. It’s a place that Carla spent years wanting to visit, when she lived in England – and we’re happy to have been able to go there together. It’s truly a breathtaking experience!

For more photos from our weekend at Yosemite, check out our Facebook page!