One more thing about Yosemite
I wasn't too impressed with Mariposa Grove and it takes a lot of time if you have to ride the shuttle.
We parked and waited 25 minutes for a shuttle. That was a 15-20 minute ride. We walked around 1 1/2 hours and then did the shuttle thing all over again. The parking lot at the Grove is very small and they won't to close it all together in the future.
The landscape is hot dry and barren looking and hilly. They burned the forest recently to get rid of undergrowth. For all the time it takes, I am not sure it is worth it unless you have a lot of free time in your itinerary. The trees weren't as impressive as I thought they would be.

Lastly, for someone like us who are trying to show our kids the country during little school and sports breaks, we have to rush around. Our California trip cost over $8,000.00 and we still didn't have time to loiter. For all the fussy people saying slow down....people can if they are really rich and really retired. For those of us who have 2-3 weeks tops each year to travel, we want to see as much as we can. If we wait until we are 65 and can do slow leisure trips that take a month, we would be too old to hike up Nevada Falls!!! So what would be the point?

Sorry "they want to close it" in the future.

One last thing, there is a small parking area at Mirror Lake so you might be able to drive in and get a quick look, although most people take the shuttle and do the 1 mile walk to it.
Having tall mountains envelope you is pretty neat and the water is really cold anyway. (what's left of it)