Well, friends, we've made it to 20 years of being married. Two decades of choosing each other every single day–and being happy to do it over and over again. We went to a national park for our honeymoon (Rocky Mountain NP), so it only seems right that we picked the big daddy of national parks to celebrate this momentous milestone.
Over the years, we've been to a lot of national parks, and in the process, we've seen almost all of the ones that are easy to get to. Well, easier to get to–none of them are conveniently located right next to major airports! So now every park we visit involves an added layer of logistical challenges to get there. In this case, we drove to Chicago, got a flight to Oakland, then rented a car and drove about four hours to Fish Camp, CA, where we stayed at the unnecessarily fancy Tenaya Lodge.
Our first day at Yosemite was just about perfect. We got there early enough to find a parking space in Yosemite Valley, then we rented bikes for the day. We spent the whole day riding around the valley, which was an incredible way to see everything without the hassle of driving or taking a shuttle from place to place. We brought along a picnic lunch, which we enjoyed at Mirror Lake (we had to park the bikes and hike up to the lake, which was also fun). Usually by this time of year, Mirror Lake is completely dried up (making it Mirror Meadow) but last year there was a record amount of snowfall, plus a lot of rain this year, so there was still lake to be seen. Also because of this, the waterfalls around the park were still flowing. We got so lucky!
For our second day, we drove across the northern alpine sections of the park and out the east side. It was a long drive, but absolutely gorgeous, with plenty of rock formations and mountain lakes to keep our attention. And once we exited the park on the east side, we headed to Mono Lake, a hypersalinated body of water with really interesting rock (salt) formations. We hiked the trail down to the lake and spent plenty of time just being amazed that this exists in the world. Truly there aren't enough superlatives.
Our last morning was a doozy! We drove to the Mariposa Grove visitors center, then took the shuttle up to the grove itself. The plan was for me to hike the shorter .3-mile trail to get a feel for the grove, while Mike did the more challenging 2-mile hike that goes to all the major groves, but we had done quite a bit of walking the first two days and I was still feeling pretty strong, so I decided to accompany him on the longer hike. It turned out to be right at the limit of what I could handle because there were a lot of steep inclines and uneven terrain, but I ended up managing it without injury. After the year I've had trying to get my foot healed after surgery, I'll never take a 2-mile hike for granted again! Anyway, the Mariposa Grove is home to giant sequoias, and they really are incredibly impressive. Mike was so happy to go on this hike!
After we finished our hike and took the shuttle back down, it was time to head back to Oakland. We got to our hotel for the night and basically collapsed. We got some food from the sports bar in the hotel, but we were definitely not up for anything else by then. It was a very busy few days, but pretty much a perfect way to celebrate our anniversary.
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