For the past four years we've gone to Yosemite for a few days over spring break, and I always look forward to it very much, even if it's a bit of a weather Russian roulette (my husband came the first year, but it's been just Sawyer and I for the last three). This year my time off was a week earlier, and with the long cold winter California has been having I knew the whole thing could get called off. I watched the weather carefully and shuffled dates around three times, but we ended up going for two nights and three days, and then scooted on over to Modesto, where my mom and sisters live, for another night. It was perfect!
The first day we left home at 5:30 and arrived at the first waterfall by 12:30. There was zero traffic, Sawyer colored the whole time, and the hours flew by. We spent the entire afternoon exploring Bridalveil Falls and Upper/Lower Yosemite Falls Trail. On our way to check into the hotel, about 75 minutes from the Valley Floor, Sawyer got car sick for the first time in his whole life. It was a bad combo of hairpin turns, just having dinner, and staring at the iPad (the first time we busted it out that day HAD TO BE JUST THEN... luckily it survived). I'll spare you the details, but I almost pushed my car off a cliff (taking my child out first, of course). But, he and I rallied, because that's what we do.
The next day we went back to Yosemite and had a picnic lunch in the Swinging Bridge area and then hiked out to Mirror Lake. We headed to Oakhurst, the nearest town, for a quick dinner and then went back to the hotel to relax (we were both feeling it at this point; between the two days we had walked 40,000 steps and sleep was not as plentiful as normal).
The last day at Tenaya Lodge we spent outside playing in the snow and walking around, checking out precisely one minute before the 11:00 am cutoff. We drove the two-ish hours to Modesto, where we hung out with my family the rest of the day. The fire pit at the hotel had been closed for repair, which seriously ruined our s'mores game, but my mom and her husband fixed that issue at their place.
And then we drove home the next day! Traveling along with a kid is never easy- I read somewhere that it's just "parenting in a different place." And while Sawyer is a great traveler and is really flexible, it's still super true. It's totally exhausting making sure we remember everything, making multiple trips to the car to bring in bags, keeping track of him every second, etc... But it's also totally worth it and I am thankful we are able to have a few little adventures a year.
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