If this applies to anyone, I'll be glad I took the time to update here:

Hwy 152 at Hecker Pass is being widened and is closed until the end of Sept 2005, 129 is being suggested instead.

As to dinner foryour wife's birthday... you'll have to eat at the Ahwahnee! (There are not a lot of options in the park.)Bring lots of $$$, a coat and tie and book early so you can see the shadows fall. You'll have a beautiful evening.

As far as birthday dinners, another option is the Mountain restaurant right at Yosemite lodge since you were lucky to get a room there - it is still very nice but not as expensive as Ahwahnee. Entree prices range from $15-$30 with a range of dishes including seafood/steak and we found the food to be quite good when we were there a few weeks ago for our anniversary. Also, you don't have to dress up (although I hear that Ahwahnee no longer requires coat/tie for men).

The Ahwahnee doesn't require a coat for men anymore--the website says business and I confirmed the no-coat requirement with the dining room when making reservations. But no shorts, jeans, sneakers, flip-flogs, etc.

TT, in answer to your question about parking at the Grove--since they reduced the parking area there, shuttle buses are now run down to the Grove from the parking lot next to the Wawona Hotel. There is plenty of parking at the lot. I think the idea was to reduce the number of cars and their fumes so close to the trees. At the Grove, you get off the shuttle bus and there can buy tickets for the open air tram ride through the Grove, which I highly recommend.

It's about 30 miles, for which I would allow 45 minutes to an hour, from Glacier Point to Wawona. I've forgotten exactly how often the shuttle buses run and how long the ride down to the Grove takes, but probably you should figure on an average of a half hour for that total process.

Thanks in a large part to the helpful advice from this forum, we just returned home from a very full but fantastic quick trip to the San Francisco area. I'm posting a highlight of our trip in case it will be of help to any others.

To level set, we basically had 2 1/2 days in SF and an evening and day in Yosemite before we had to fly out early Sunday morning. While in SF we relied solely on public transportation and rented a car for the Yosemity portion - we stayed at the Doubletree near the airport due to a business meeting I had there.

Day 1 - took the hotel shuttle to the BART station at the airport and purchased a youth ticket for my 10 year old ($6 for $24 worth of travel) at the Polaris information booth. Took the BART to the Powell Station where we purchased 1-day Passports near the Cable Car start. Since the line at the cable car start was so long, we started walking up Powell toward Union Square. Stopped at the Sears Restaurant for a great breakfast and then boarded the cable car to Chinatown. Spent some time walking through the main drag and browsing. Then backtracked up to Powell Street to catch the next cable car to North Beach. I followed my walking tour directions from the AAA Tour Book to take us past Sts. Peter and Paul Church up to Telegraph Hill (GREAT VIEWS!) and down the steps to Montgomery Street and back down to North Beach. Walked up Lombardi (stopped to enjoy the Crooked Street section a bit) and then walked up to Hyde Street to catch the cable car to Fishermans' Wharf area. Had lunch at Boudin's and a Raspberry Chocolate Sundae at Ghiradelli's. Took the #30 bus to transfer to #28 at Laguna Street which we took to Golden Gate Bridge. The views were fantastic from the bridge. Backtracked via #28 Inbound to #30 to Fisherman's Wharf to watch the Sea Lions on Pier 39 before catching the Powell Mason cable car back downtown to the Powell St. BART station. Am just hitting the highlights as we did stop to browse and pick up some bites here and there along the way - unfortunately, did not take time to really enjoy a great dinner as I wanted my 10-year old to see as much of key attractions as possible in such a short time.

Day 2 - I had meetings so my wife and 10 year-old took BART back to the city and did their own things.

Day 3 I picked up a rental car and my wife and 10-year old drove to Pacifica and Moss Beach to enjoy the coastline in the morning while I was in meetings. We left around 1PM for Yosemite and got to the Lodge around 5:30. We walked around a bit til our dinner reservation at the Mountain Room restaurant at 7:00. The falls obviously weren't much to see in Sept. but the valley and other views were beautiful. Dinner was actually very nice there.

Day 4 we ate at the Lodge Food Court and headed to Glacier Point(arrived at 10:30AM), stopping before the tunnel to enjoy the view. Glacier Point was SPECTACULAR - DON'T MISS IT! We then drove to Wawona where we caught the shuttle to Mariposa (at 1PM)and then hiked up to the museum / upper grove. The Giant Sequoia's were unbelievably huge and definitely worth seeing but in my humble opinion, I enjoyed seeing the Redwoods in Muir Woods a bit more (on a previous trip). We didn't take the tramp up to the museum because of personal preference to enjoy it on our own, but it was a long dusty hike. Would've been more enjoyable if we hadn't been trying to get so much into one trip, I'm sure. Would've liked to have dinner at the Wawona, but had to head back to SF instead.

All in all it was a whirlwind visit but worth every ounce of energy it took. Yes, I could cry for only having 1 day in Yosemite (and in SF for that matter) but am still glad we saw what we did. Obviously, this isn't the preferred timetable to use any of these places but am posting it here to just state, that, it can be done. We did walk our everloving legs off :-)

Also, on the way to Yosemite (on 140), on the outskirts of Merced, stop at one of the Fruit/Produce shops - you can't beat the fresh trail mix, fruit, or nuts!

We left Yosemite via 41 to Oakhurst, then 49 to Mariposa, then 140 to 99.

Thanks so much to all who helped offer advice here!

TT