Merced and Yosemite

We left SF this morning at 7.30 am, Thursday 6th September and got the train from Oakland to (Merced) Bakersfield.  We should get to Merced in 3 hours, then we transfer to a coach for Yosemite National Park. Once we have seen more Redwoods we head for the Hotel for Dinner and the night.  Tomorrow we get back on this train line to Bakersfield and transfer by coach to Las Vegas. 
Today was a rush to get to the Yosemite Park. During the coach journey we had a quick 20 min stop to use the rest rooms and get a snack. We had a 'lovely' hot dog from Cindy's cart at Mariposa. Maripose means butterfly. Named after an US army battalion who were fighting the 'killers' Indians in the wild west. The battalion did not know what the word meant. We had a laugh at the  image of an Indian Tribe called the 'killers' saying lets go fight the 'butterflies'. Coach continues through Yosemite valley. We went over a zig zag  bridge built over the Merced River and then back to avoid the dangerous landslide which happened in 2007, blocking the old road and has not been sorted out. A red traffic light on this single road can mean a 15 min delay. Yosemite is beautiful. Large trees, Red Wood, Sequoia and Cedar in a valley surrounded by 3,000 ft mountains. People have died attempting to climb the mountains and the climb can take 5 days. We had a guided tour on a tram from a Ranger called Eric. He kept a serious talk on biology, ecology and geology interesting by playing silly tunes on his iPod. YMCA became YOSE; yes he made us do the actions. And he called us back to the tram with Johnny Cash singing 'Walk the line'. He was very funny!
Caught some zzzz on way back to (Merced) the Courtyard Marriatt Hotel, Merced. Going  to bed now. Tomorrow we head out for Vegas!
David, son back home,  had heard about the health problems in the cabins at Yosemite Park. (to David) Yes, we were safe. It is in the camping area. People are leaving food out and mice come round and they have the disease. It is not airborne and we were on the coach behind glass most of the trip. I did wear socks and a long sleeve top though. People can die from it. Eddy was funny telling us about Poison Ivy. He warned us not to touch plants in case there were poison ivy and we did not know.  Ilia (Eddy's Mother) was very ill with it one visit. She did his garden whilst he was at work and it was full of poison ivy. They had to take her to hospital. 
Yes set us up a blog please. That Duncan is really helpful, if I can't get on to the blog he will help. He has made this a lot easier. I couldn't save throughout the day, he showed me how to do that. Now I can type bits throughout the day, save and send it to you on the evening.
Alan changed the time of his clock when he set the alarm so we are up at 5.15 instead of 6.45. Might as well get up I won't get back to sleep now. It is hours of travel to get to Las Vegas from Merced. 3 hours on the train and 5 hours on the coach. Doesn't look that far on the map. Everything here is so much bigger and much further away than you think.