2019 – The honeymoon trip: Stayed in San Francisco, traveled to Yosemite National Park and Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Parks

What are you to do when the new job wants you to start work the Monday after your wedding? Postpone the honeymoon is of course the answer. The next question is where to go over a 5 day weekend in October? Here is where the idea of traveling cities adjacent to national parks was born.

Wednesday

Using the leftover money from our wedding, we flew from Atlanta to San Francisco. And while I understand that having Hartsfield-Jackson as our home airport makes us spoiled, SFO was one of the worst experiences either of us has ever had. From the trains being out of order after 1 am (we landed at 2 am) and there being no way to walk between terminals, us and the other passengers were stranded until the pilot got ahold of staff to turn the trains back on. By the time we got our rental car (Hertz: $140 per day – 4 days)

For price reasons, we stayed in San Jose/Fremont area, which is about 45 minutes outside of San Francisco, at Days Inn. The price was around $115 per night – 4 nights https://www.wyndhamhotels.com/days-inn/fremont-california/days-inn-fremont-ca/overview?CID=LC:DI::GGL:RIO:National:15425&iata=00093796

Thursday

Thursday started off slow. At 10:30 both Josh and myself had a tattoo appointment at O Tattoo Studio (6399 Telegraph Ave Oakland, CA 94609) By Chihua (they/them). This was an amazing experience. The studio was by appointment only, very clean, had a nice open feel to it. Chihua was a fantastic fine line choice for both of us, and was willing to work with us on being 5 minutes over the price per hour! ($150 per hour) My tattoo is the dewy decimal number for Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Josh’s, following the recent passing of his grandmom, with the amazing quote from the 3rd Harry Potter movie.

https://instagram.com/lil_chihua?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Post Tattoos, we headed back to the hotel for a nap, as we were still exhausted from the flight in and time change.

That evening we drove into San Fran. The hills, the cute houses, and made our way to the Golden Gate Bridge! (Note: this is a toll bridge with no option to turn off. Our rental car had an auto toll that charged us at the end of the trip). Here we watched the sunset turn the bridge a fiery red. For dinner that night, we joined the post work crowd at a cute, hole in the wall, Mexican restaurant: Chisme Cantina https://chismesf.com/

Friday

*Disclaimer: If I was planning this trip again, I would not do Friday and Saturday the same way.

This morning, waking up before the sun (which with the time change was more like 8am home time) we got gas, granola bars and hit the road, driving the 2 hours and 48 minutes (146 miles) via CA-120 E, to Yosemite National Park.

Previously I had downloaded the 1 Day Itinerary from the https://www.dirtinmyshoes.com/ travel blog, as this itinerary had: at a glance, shuttle guides, trail guides and other helpful information.

8:00 AM – Arrive in Yosemite Valley, Parks Project “Yosemite NP” playlist on Spotify going, itinerary downloaded, ready to be wowed. When I tell you, we were not prepared for how stunning driving into the valley for the first time is…there were no words.

9:00 AM – Parked (got lucky with a spot) at the visitors/general store and hopped on the shuttle

9:10 AM – Started our hike up Mist Trail, which leads you across both lower and upper falls, to the top of Vernal Fall

9:20 AM – Cross the dry creek bed that the itinerary told us would be a rushing river and expect our shoes to get wet, but there was no water anywhere.

9:25 AM – Walk across completely dry rock bed that is supposed to “mist” you as you go by…start to wonder where all the water is…

9:30 AM – Learn that 90% of Yosemite Valleys water source is from snow melt and as we came after a long hot summer, there will not be any water in the falls, or lake until next spring.

11:00 AM – Take the shuttle to Mirror Lake. While this was not the instagrammable mirrored reflection we were expecting, it was fun to walk around the sandy lake bed. We also sat here and ate pre-packed lunchables, granola, and had plenty of water.

After lunch we reviewed the itinerary with a new understanding that hiking to see a waterfall was not going to happen this trip, so we adjusted to see the sites that would be more valley and views.

1:00 PM – Lower Yosemite Falls viewing deck, again to see a pretty view with the tiniest trickle of water.

2:00 PM – Drive out to Glacier Point, stopping on the way at Tunnel View Viewpoint. Both of these stops were incredible and I cannot recommend them enough.

5:00 PM – Decided to drive back out of the mountains while we still had some daylight, saying see you later to Yosemite National Park.

For dinner this night we tried In-and-Out and while it was fun to experience, I don’t know that it lived up to the hype.

*If I was doing this trip again, I would have reserved a hotel in between Yosemite and Sequoia (Maybe Fresno?) instead of driving the 3 hours back, just to drive 4 hours out and back the next day)

Saturday

This morning, we also rose with the sun, and realized we may have bit off more than we could chew. Again filling up gas, getting a quick gas station breakfast and monster energy drinks we set out for the 3 hour 51 minute (240 miles) via 1-5 S and CA-198 E towards the Kings Canyon entrance.

While I am sure there was much more beauty we missed on this day, we mostly focused on sites within this park that we could see from the car, or were a “must see.”

10:00 AM – Arrive off the 180 entrance station by Big Stump. And yes, it really was big enough to warrant being named “Big stump picnic area.” We also followed the little trail and explored the Big Stump Grove where we got our first up close encounter with the sequoias.

10:30 AM – Check out the Kings Canyon Visitor Center, then made our way down (1/3 mile) to the General Grant Grove, where we got to see the second largest sequoia in the world.

11:00 AM – Traveling along the Generals Highway, we crossed from Kings Canyon NP into Sequoia NP, stopped frequently along the way to see the beautiful landscapes and smaller groves.

12:00 PM – Stopped in at the Lodgepole Visitor Center and ate a quick lunch

12:30 PM – From the Lodgepole center we parked at the Wolverton Road entrance to General Sherman tree. This was an easy 0.8 km down to the tree, but was a brutal hike back up. As you are following the trail down to General Sherman, make sure to take in the rest of the Giant Forest sequoia grove. At the base of the General Grant trail you can also find the Congress Trail which was worth the short loop around.

3:00 PM – After driving deeper into Sequoia NP, we entered our hotel into the GPS and found if left the park out of the Foothills entrance that it would be closer to 6 hours back to the hotel, so we opted to backtrack through the park.

We finished out our stay eating a nice burger joint (that unfortunately closed after Covid-19)

Sunday

Driving back into SFO, we were happy to be on our way home! It was a wonderful trip, and we learned some great lessons about future travel!

Cost of Trip