Yosemite/ San Francisco May 2016

So this is a trip we had been planning for a few months now. Sara was leaving on her mission at the end of May so we decided we would take a trip out to San Jose to visit her. Gv was on vacation with her family in North Carolina so Kate Tyler and I packed our stuff up and started driving west towards California. Turns out the day we were supposed to get there, Sara had to fly to Salt Lake to get her visa for her mission, so we decided to stop in Yosemite for the day. We left around 1:00 Utah time because I had to take a midterm and we stopped at the Salt Flats on the way, which were actually way cool. They still had a lot of water on them, so it was cool to see the reflection of the mountains and the sky on the water. If you ever go though, make sure you wear sandals because it hurts walking barefoot through the water on the salt. We made it to Reno and stopped at a Walmart to buy some food and then started heading down a little further to Yosemite. We ended up making it to the park around 3 or 4 and we decided it was so late that we would just sleep in the car so we moved all the stuff to the front two seats and all cuddled up in the back of the car.

We woke up around 7:00 so we didn't get a whole lot of sleep. Maybe two or three hours, but we felt pretty good for just having driven 12 hours and only slept for three. Our plan for the day was to do the four mile trail up to glacier point and then head back down the other side through the waterfalls on Panorama trail. It's a rough 14 mile hike total and takes a lot of the day but the views are amazing and you see some of the coolest parts of the park. There were great views of Yosemite falls, half dome, the valley, as well as some of the other waterfalls like Vernal and Nevada. If you only have one day in Yosemite and you're feeling up for it, do this trail for sure. It was exhausting and by the time we finished, my feet were killing me and I was worn out, but it was so worth it and so fun. We ended up hiking most of the way down with a guy from Slovakia who was way cool.

That night we made it to Sara's house pretty late and basically went right to bed but the next day we got up and headed off to Santa Cruz. We got some brunch and headed over to the abandoned pier which is a beach with the remains of a pier that used to exist there. Then we tried heading over to a wave pool but turns out someone had cut the rope so we couldn't really get down very easily. It looked pretty sketchy. There was a seal that looked like it had been washed up and was just sitting on the rocks but apparently it was just taking a nap according to the wildlife service. We then headed over to the fish bowl to cliff jump, which seemed really scary but it was actually really fun and not that bad. We grabbed some pizza and ice cream and then headed back to Sara's house.

The next day we went to San Francisco and our first stop was Twin Peaks, which overlooks the city. Definitely a pretty touristy place. We then headed downtown and walked around some of the shops and grabbed a burrito for lunch. We headed over to to the pier and danced for a little with some street performers and walked around some art shops. We grabbed some ice cream from Ghiradeli Square and then drove across the bridge to Kirby Cove beach, which may have been the coolest place we visited. It is a small, secluded beach next to the bay bridge that has a swing tied to one it's trees. We watched the sunset there and ended the night by driving past the Oakland temple.

Sunday, our last day, we went to church and then headed down to Big Sur to check out Mcway's waterfall. Unfortunately we hit traffic and didn't have time to do much else but it was a really cool drive and it really is a beautiful place. We ate dinner at Sara's house and then had to hit the road at about 8:00 to make it back on time the next day at 9:30 for class. We stopped in Sacramento to see some of my old high school friends and then drove 100 miles per hour through the Nevada desert to make it home in time. It was really a trip to remember.

Here's a link to the video we made: https://vimeo.com/172967491