It was hard for us to leave San Francisco this morning because of how much we love this city. We truly didn’t have enough time to see everything we wanted to see…so we’ll definitely be making a trip out here again soon! We were able to sleep in today because we had plans to get an early lunch with my aunt about 40 minutes away in Redwood City…so needless to say we took advantage of the extra hours we had in a real bed!

We started the drive meet my aunt for lunch at a café near her work. It was so great to see her and catch up!

After lunch we started our drive east to Yosemite National Park, and on the way we stopped in Manteca, CA to see my cousin Lori and her niece and nephew, which was another fun opportunity to see and catch up with family before Yosemite!

We got to Yosemite National Park around 3PM and instead of driving directly to our campsite at Crane Flat, we kept driving towards Yosemite Valley to go to the Visitor Center, see Yosemite Falls, and hike the Lower Falls Trail!

We hiked the quick trail that led us to the base of Lower Yosemite Falls, and when we got there we saw others scrambling up and around the rocks to get a closer view of the falls (some even to swim)…so we joined them!

By the time we got back to our car, the sun was setting over El Capitan, so we decided to head back to camp to set up and get settled in.

We’re here for two nights and in the morning we’ll set out early to see some things outside the valley before doing a guided tour of Yosemite’s Valley in the early afternoon. After the tour, we plan to hike a couple more trails to see all of the different falls in this beautiful park…so stay posted!