What Would Yosemite Sam Say? Brrrrr!

AND YOU THINK WISCONSIN HAS SNOW?

Travel is something that broadens everyone...mostly from eating all the new foods available on the trip to new locales (especially minor league ballparks and places I've been), and I like to think I've seen at least some portion of all areas of this beautiful country except the extreme Northeast. With the advent of GPS, the Weather Channel, and Google Earth, there are very few travel surprises anymore...certainly none like finding that a river has washed out a bridge, a massive forest fire will melt the tires off your car before you get where you want to go, or that an avalanche will cause a shift in summer travel plans. Avalanche? You bet. Such is the case TODAY in Yosemite National Park.
At an elevation of 9,945 feet, Tioga Road which bisects the park is the highest trans-Sierra route in California. Hence, if your name is Donner, and you plan a trip to, say, Oregon (though that would be an odd way to go to Oregon...humor me here) in the next couple of days, you might want to rethink that. According to information posted on the Yosemite Park website, the route containing Tioga Pass is closed with NO estimated opening date! In the middle (almost) of June!
No doubt there are other ways to cross the Sierra Nevada range (like driving to someplace south of Yosemite), but my geography skills are weak so I can be of little help. If, however, you are determined to visit Yosemite this summer instead of the hundreds of Civil War sites celebrating (if such a thing can be celebrated) 150 years since the Civil War, take the GPS and the iPhone or iPad with the weather Channel app and Google Earth to forestall a Donner Party (this was a party?) experience.
Get out there and see America before China buys it all or Jersey Shore takes over all the landmarks as it did in Florence, Italy.