We rolled in in our bright red Mustang convertible (rental) through this town that looked like vacation. I wondered if anyone actually lived there, or if the people working in the shops, restaurants and hotels commuted from outside of paradise. The sky was blue and everything seemed colorful. We found a place to park (a few blocks from the actual beach, and it didn’t appear that any parking was free), walked to the beach and set up our towels. When we stepped into the water for the first time, it was way too cold for me. It was April, so I knew there was a chance the water would be pretty cold, but lots of people were still in up to their necks having fun, and I wanted to be one of them. Except the waves kept scaring me off. There were so many waves. I don’t know if it was just the weather that day, or if the waves are usually that great on that beach, but they were the kind of waves that would knock you down. Not-so-coincidentally, they were also the kind of waves that made for a lot of fun if you had the right gear. We ended up going to a little beach hut to buy a boogie-board. That was what made the afternoon. I wasn’t so afraid to go in deeper when I had this floatation device velcroed to my wrist, so pretty soon we were taking turns riding the waves on this board. Let me disclose something: the last time I was on a boogie-board, I was a child and I happened to also be on a beach in Florida. I hardly remembered anything about it from when I was kid, except that it was so fun that I spent most of the afternoon on my belly riding that board, and because of that, I ended up with the worst sunburn I had ever had on my back. So that day at Clearwater Beach, I was sure to use sunscreen. I sprayed waterproof SPF 50 all over my body multiple times throughout the day, and I still noticed myself getting pink. And every time I saw some pink I would re-apply. Despite all that effort. I still ended up with a horrible sunburn. Everywhere. I was burned on my legs, my arms, my chest, my hands, my feet and even one of my eyelids. I have no idea why one and not the other, but I’ll count it as a blessing. I’m telling you all this now so that you can avoid the mistakes I made. I thought that since I was re-applying so frequently, I was fine. But the problem was that I wasn’t paying close enough attention to the amount going on in each place. As I’m writing this, the red is gone and it has turned to tan, but definitely not an even, sun-kissed glow. I look like I have a skin condition. There are stripes of tan on me where I didn’t get enough sunscreen, and stripes that are normal, with the stripes meeting each other in a series of speckles from the spray-on application. Luckily, this didn’t start hurting until the drive home, so we were able to enjoy walking the boardwalk, shopping in all the cute stores and eating at a restaurant right across the street from the beach, where I pretended I was Katy Perry by sipping gin and juice underneath the palm trees. That whole town was just so adorable. If we ever got tired of being in the water or lying on the beach, there was always something else to do within walking distance. Then we could go back to swimming and lying on the beach. I suddenly go the appeal of beaches as destinations. And by the end of the day, we were tired and ready for showers, but we still got to see the beautiful sunset. And it was beautiful.
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The Wizarding World of Harry Potter was magical. End of post. The end. I’m kidding, but it’s hard for me to sum it up any better than that. It really felt like I was in that world for the day. The castle was beautiful, the dragon was spectacular and every last details was exactly what it would have been in that magical wizarding world. I’ll break down the two sections for you.
Hogsmeade is where we tried our Butterbeer. When you go to a Butterbeer stand, you can get regular or frozen. They’re both good, but the regular is amazing. And my mom had her mind set on trying Butterbeer ice cream, which is not sold at those stands, but only in an ice cream shop in Diagon Alley. She ended up getting that without me, so I can’t speak to it, but she raved about it. Now, I want to tell you about the biggest ride in Hogsmeade. I had heard a lot about the Escape from Gringotts in Diagon Alley, because it’s newer, so I didn’t know much about Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. It was a “virtual ride” like I described in my other Universal Studios post, except in was on a track, so there were some screens with effects, and there were some real props as you rode through this ride. And before we got on, there was a warning, like on all the rides, that said don’t get on this if you’re pregnant or have a heart condition etc. etc. What they should have added was: don’t get on this ride if you have severe arachnophobia. That is my sincere advice to you. Advice that no one gave me. You’re welcome. I was literally sobbing as huge prop-spiders dropped from the ceiling two feet in front of me. I can barely watch that scene in Chamber of Secrets let alone live it. I guess that’s also when they took the “fun” souvenir photo, because when I got off the ride and saw it, the photo showed my hands covering most of my face so all you could see was my mouth hanging open in a crying-frown like a child. Because apparently I am one. No, I do not have a copy of that photo. There was another small ride in Hogsmeade called The Flight of the Hippogriff. This seemed like more of a kids’ ride, because it was very small and low to the ground. But it definitely wasn’t just kids riding it. When I was there, the line was very short, so we rode it, and I liked it. It’s not a thrill ride, or anything, but it’s part of the experience. Although I wouldn’t have waited in a long line for it. Diagon Alley I thought you would only be able to get your $50 interactive wands at Ollivanders in Diagon Alley, but I guess that would cause an even longer line than any of the rides, so you can pretty much get one anywhere, Hogsmeade included. I went into it knowing that I was not going to spend that much on a toy wand, even if it did cool things around the park. In all my research, there were two “secrets” to the park that everyone said you had to do, and one of them was buy and use these fancy interactive wands. And man, am I glad I didn’t. Not only are they crazy expensive for a piece of plastic (I think. Maybe some of them really are wood.), but every little stop where you can do some “magic” with your wand had a line of children waiting their turn to swish their wand at it. And it took several tries per child to get it to work. On a few occasions, I would be shocked to see that a line to get into a shop was out the door, then I would realize, no, that’s not the line for the door, that’s the line for the shop window, where everybody wants to make the toad hiccup (or something). Then I would walk right inside, line-free. Usually I didn’t even have the patience to watch what it was the wand was supposed to do to each thing, because it was just a show of frustrated children not swishing their wands effectively. I wasn’t about it.
Escape from Gringotts was amazing. This was probably the longest line we waited in, but it still wasn’t too bad. While I’m on the topic of lines, even the queues in the Wizarding World were fun. If you were in the Hogwarts Castle, you were in the Hogwarts Castle, passing talking portraits and the Mirror of Erised. If you were in Gringotts, you were in the bank, passing goblins and vaults. It made waiting in line not so horrible. The ride was another part-virtual/part-ride, and it didn’t disappoint.
I recently returned from a non-national park trip. Maybe I’m broadening my horizons. Maybe I like mixing things up. Maybe it was a family trip, and I didn’t get to choose the destination. Whatever the reason, I was stoked to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. That’s right folks. I went to Orlando, Florida. We had a little less than a week there, so we decided we would spend two days in Universal Studios, but save Wizarding World for the second day, and do it all at once (Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley). Aside from the Wizarding World, I didn’t really know much about what all is in Universal Studios or what it would be like. I have a little experience with actual theme parks from going to Silver Dollar City too many times to count (shout out my fellow midwesterners!). I don’t just mean general Six-Flags-Style amusement parks, but actual parks with a theme, like Universal Studios ended up being. I loved the fake streets filled with pedestrians that separated fake city blocks that made up fake cities, like San Francisco, New York City and London. It made me feel like I had stepped out of reality. Which was the goal, because it was supposed to look like an actual film studio lot. So it was trying to look like a place trying to look like another place. Theme park Inception! This also meant that a lot of the cutesy looking shops were fake. Found that out the hard way! Every once in a while, we would run by some sort of cool paraphernalia that, of course, I would feel the need to take a photo with. So can you blame me for taking this cheesy photo next to the DeLorean from my absolute favorite movie? One of my favorite “cities” in this park was The Simpsons’ Springfield. The Simpsons is the one adult cartoon that I actually like, so when I had the chance to try a real Duff beer, I took it. Was it good beer? No. Did I hold it up to the sign and take a photo anyway? You bet your sweet patootie I did. So many of the rides at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure are kind of virtual rides. I hadn’t had any experience with a ride like this before this trip. The first one we got on was Jimmy Fallon’s Race Through New York. “Virtual ride” is probably not the technical term for rides like these, but what I mean is that they would give you 3-D glasses that blocked out your peripheral vision so you could only see the huge screen in front of you and sit you down in a… room, I guess? Definitely not a traditional roller coaster car. Once the “ride” starts, the room/car/thing would shake around and move with the action on screen so it felt like you were there. I got off the Race Through New York, and I was so impressed. I’m a fan of normal roller coasters, and I won’t compare this kind of ride to that, but it was fun in it’s own way. My dad, however, was more sick than impressed. I hadn’t been paying attention to him during the ride, but he told me afterward that he was so nauseated in the beginning seconds that he took off his goggles, and when that didn’t help, he had to close his eyes for the rest of the ride to avoid throwing up on the people sitting in front of us. It can definitely mess with your head. He didn’t go on anymore of the virtual rides. And there were a lot. And unlike the Race Through New York, some of them were on a track and still moved you along, switching from real sets and props to screens and back, like Skull Island: Reign of Kong.
In fact, I think the only real thrill roller coaster we went on on the Universal side was our first ride of the day, Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit. You have to pass by the Minions to get there (on no. what a tragedy.), but it’s pretty close to the entrance of the park. This ride was so much fun, and what made it really cool was that when you sit down on the train, you can pick the song you want to listen to from a list of options on a screen in front of you. Everyone can pick a different song. I chose Sabotage by the Beastie Boys, which I highly recommend, but my dad wasn’t quick enough to the draw, so it picked something random for him. So know getting on that you have to be pretty quick. Other than that I think the only traditional thrill roller coaster was the Incredible Hulk in Islands of Adventure, which is essentially just Universal Studios part 2. With these two parks, you can buy park-to-park passes or just a ticket to one of them. We only did park to park on the day we did Wizarding World, so I’ll talk more about that in that post. Islands of Adventure was also separated into sections, except they weren’t exactly cities, like on the Universal side. It had a comic-themed section of the park where there was not only the Hulk ride, but a Spiderman half-virtual/half-actually moving ride. (I’m really starting to wish I knew the real name for that kind of ride.) And there was a Dr Suess section of the park, which was tons of fun to just walk through. It makes you feel like you’re in a Suess book, which, yes, is pretty trippy. Basically, anywhere in both of these parks transports you to wherever they want you to be, fictional world or otherwise. It’s magical. And I haven’t even gotten to the Harry Potter part yet... Before the weather got too cold here in Missouri, I took a day trip to a park in the Southwest part of the state. As you may know, there are no National Parks in Missouri. There are hardly any in the midwest at all. But Missouri has some great State Parks. I’ve been to several of them in my life, but there was one that I saw in pictures and wanted to visit so badly. It involves a castle: Can you see why I wanted to go so badly? According to my parents, I’d actually been to this park before, when I was a kid. But I don’t have any memory of it, so I don’t really count that. Although, kudos to my parents for taking their kids to cool places. I had a few days off work at the beginning of October, and when you work two jobs, like I do, that pretty much never happens. So my boyfriend, Joe, and I spontaneously decided to use one of those days to travel to Ha Ha Tonka State Park. The park closes at sunset anyway, so we didn’t think it would be too impractical to drive down in the morning and back home that night. It was only about two and a half hours from where I was living, and a bit longer for Joe, who lives in Kansas. The park is in a small town called Camdenton, Mo., which I would have loved to explore more, had we had the time. But we were lost enough to use that as an excuse to stop at Ozarkland for directions, which is a huge gift shop/toy store that was utterly adorable and quirky. Joe loves talking to people, so he quickly made friends with the older woman behind the counter wearing a “Jesus is my Friend” lanyard, and he pretty much told her our story. Which is kind of a weird one. If I’m being totally transparent here, he wasn’t even my boyfriend at the time. This was our third date, and my dad actually called me while we were there to make sure I hadn’t been ax murdered yet. We left that shop with a new fanny pack, 12 name patches with other people’s names (including, but not limited to Merv, Ace and Babe), and directions to Ha Ha Tonka. We had just missed the turn. When we got there, we stopped at the Visitor’s Center for a map. They seemed pretty surprised to see us there, so I’m guessing most people just head straight to the castle, which is where we went next. The parking lot is very close to the castle, so it’s not too much of a walk at all. The building itself was built in the early 1900s to use as a summer home for a wealthy man who later died in a fatal car crash before the building had even been finished. His children completed the construction in the 1920s, but it was destroyed in a fire just a couple decades later, which is why it is in ruins now. We walked around the castle (you can’t actually go in, I’m assuming to preserve it), and it was weird to think that at a point in time this castle-ruin was just somebody’s house. Granted, it was a second home and it was mansion, but it was still weird to picture while we were staring at dirt and grass growing from where a floor used to be.
We got back to the castle in time for sunset, and we sat on a bench on a wooden, porch-like structure that overlooked the river below, and let me tell you: that castle is beautiful at sunset. The pink and orange sky tinted the stone walls, and that color combined with the shadows casted by a low sun made the castle even more beautiful than it already was. We had to drive back in the dark, but seeing that castle at sunset was the show. Seeing it during the early afternoon was fine, but if you can stay, I highly recommend it. Let's hop in our DeLoreans and go back a bit—before I went to Petrified Forest, before Joshua Tree. I want to tell you about a specific trail at Yosemite. One I didn't mention in my original Yosemite post. I didn't want to come off as if I didn't wholly love Yosemite, because I did. But this was a park where I had to face one of my most severe and impractical fears. I'm sure a lot of people face their fears in the National Parks. But I feel like those fears are generally related to heights. My fear was (and is) bugs. I personally feel like I have made great strides with this fear, before I even set foot in Yosemite. I used to be so afraid of bugs that they took a serious toll on my relationship with mother nature. But, now it's mainly the buzzing, stinging bugs that still make me squeal. Yes, squeal. Or, in this case, actually scream. On our second day in Yosemite, we decided to hike a trail up to "Inspiration Point." It is actually a very long trail out and back, but it has various points along the way, and Inspiration Point is the first one. Our goal was to make it to that point, then head back. We weren't in for an incredibly long hike, because we still wanted to see other parts of the park that day. I don't even think we had made it half a mile into the trail before the bugs became a problem for me. A while into the trail I realized it was a specific kind of blooming bush that these particular bugs were attracted to. Any time I was near that bush I could hear the buzzing. They were swarming with bumble bees and other large, buzzing things that I couldn't identify. "Swarming" may be a slight exaggeration, but there were a lot. And these bugs weren't just going about their business, they were extremely territorial. I swear I was chased down by a bumble bee more than once. If it weren't me experiencing this fear, I would probably laugh at how silly it is. But in the moment, the fear is very real for me. Whenever I heard that buzzing too close to me, I would literally break into a run, with my big hiking backpack bouncing around on my back. It probably looked quite comical, but while it was happening, I really didn't care how I looked. My dad would try to warn me over my loud, unabashed sobs that if I ran, I could risk twisting my ankle on the very rocky and uneven trail, then I would really have nowhere to go. When we stopped for a water break (far away from any sort of bee bush), my dad looked up bumble bees on his phone in an attempt to calm me down. He was convinced that they didn't sting at all. Not only do they sting, but we found out that if they do sting, they will sting repeatedly. And that the males will chase you down, and generally use any sort of scare tactic to protect the females. I told you they were really chasing me! And that doesn't even speak to the threat of the bugs I couldn't identify. Clearly, that didn't set my mind at ease. The more we hiked, the more I thought, I've come this far; I can't give up now. I was determined to reach Inspiration Point, and when we did, I've got to admit: it wasn't worth it. People always seem to say that if you just face your fear head on, you won't be so scared anymore. But I think that trail made me even more afraid of bugs. I felt like I couldn't escape them the whole way up. And I still had to go all the way back down. Plus, this point didn't seem too inspirational. I can't speak to what the payoff is like at the very top of the trail, but I didn't even understand why this was considered a stopping point. There was a better view about a third of the way in. This was the view from the Inspiration Point: Can you see the tension in my face? I was not looking forward to the trip back down. And, honestly, after the hike up I'd had, I was thinking it had better be worth it. But there were trees blocking any kind of view. This was the view from what we later found out was "Old Inspiration Point" about a third of the way to Inspiration Point: Much more inspirational, don't you think? If we had stopped there, I would have saved myself a lot of energy. And I don't just mean from the running away. The actual anxiety of being surrounded by my fear left me physically exhausted. When I made it to the bottom of the trail (several minutes before the rest of my group, due to the running and screaming), I just walked over to Tunnel View and sat there staring at the park's beauty, thankful to be off that trail.
Petrified Forest surprised me. I know all National Parks are beautiful, or else why make that land a National Park? But after seeing Yosemite and Sequoia in the week before we hit Petrified Forest, I kind of expected it to be underwhelming. It wasn't. It was actually kind of a perfect park to wind our trip to an end. When we started our trip to California, we weren't even planning on stopping at Petrified Forest. But when we were calculating which route we should take home at the end of our trip, we realized we couldn't not stop there. We would be driving right through it. Since we added it to our itinerary rather spontaneously, we didn't even have a full day to see the park. Just a couple hours. Once I was there, I was disappointed that we didn't have more time to spend, because it seemed like if you had a whole day to dedicate to it, you could see the whole park. We didn't get to stop at every trail and landmark, but we hit a few of the big ones. We entered from the South end of the park, so the first place we went was the Rainbow Forest Museum, which had the Giant Logs trail essentially in its backyard. I'd seen petrified wood before when I was traveling through South Dakota, but either I had forgotten just how colorful it can be, or the petrified wood I'd seen then just wasn't as vibrant as what was in Petrified Forest. Basically, these fallen trees are full of color because of the petrifying process, which, believe it or not, is very different than what Hermione experienced in Chamber of Secrets. There's no Basilisk involved, rather these trees get trapped underwater and over the course of millions of years, the wood is replaced by minerals like silica and quartz. So even though the "trees" we were seeing looked just like normal fallen trees from a distance, they are actually no longer made of wood at all.
![]() Our next stop was the Puerco Pueblo. Going into this park, I thought it was just going to be a bunch of petrified wood, but the Puerco Pueblo is actually a former home of the ancestral Puebloan people. People lived in this settlement between A.D. 1250 and A.D. 1380. The structures that we were looking at used to have over 100 rooms, which was pretty cool to imagine when we were seeing only a fraction of it. What impressed me most, though, was a specific petroglyph. There was a marking on one if the rocks that marked the summer solstice exactly. It was painted on a rock in front of another rock formation that had a crack in the middle. Ever summer solstice, the sunlight beams through the crack and hits the mark exactly. Pretty impressive. The last place we went was the Painted Desert Inn National Historic Landmark. It was a beautiful building with stunning views, and when we were in there, a few demonstrators were giving a pretty cool presentation about weaving blankets and rugs. They even showed us how yarn is made from wool for that specific art form. The Painted Desert Inn was a beautiful place to end our time in Petrified Forest and to end our California trip.
![]() I'm not sure whether it's cliche or cool to listen to U2 while driving through Joshua Tree National Park, but that's exactly what we were doing as we headed into this park. It was actually relatively full of people, which I was not expecting, but made sense given its proximity to Los Angeles. Visiting this park for the first time, I realized something. I'm used to hiking-parks. Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Arches, and parks like them usually have trails to reach the good stuff. At Joshua Tree, there isn't "good stuff" in the sense that I'm used to. There was no long trail to reach a cool sight, like Delicate Arch or Yosemite Falls. Yes, there were trails, and yes, we hiked them, but the landscape was pretty consistent throughout the park. There were a lot of joshua trees and a lot of rocks. This was a rock climbing park. And I don't mean that in the sense that there is nothing to do but rock climb. That's not the case at all. What I mean is that going to Joshua Tree made me really wish I knew anything about rock climbing. I wanted to have the full park experience, as is my goal at all the parks I visit, and at this one, rock climbing seemed to be a big part of that. I am not a rock climber. I have never geared up and climbed an actual cliff, ever. I've climbed one of those fake walls, but even then, it was kind of an activity for kids, which I was at the time. It wasn't a legitimate practice wall. That being said, we found plenty of things to do in this park for non-rock climbers. Hidden Valley and Barker Dam To be honest, these two trails were not too different. They were each great, don't get me wrong, but if you're on a limited time frame, I would say just pick one of them, then see something else in the park. The main difference was Barker Dam had water, which was kind of flabbergasting given the environment we were in. Just looking around Joshua Tree, the land is dusty and almost barren. There is definitely a beauty to that, but it was just a weird mix of images to see this pond in the middle of the desert. Other than that, these trails were beautiful for the same reasons: cool rock formations and interesting desert plants. It doesn't sound as cool as it was when I write it out like that, but it is cool. I definitely do recommend these trails.
![]() Cholla Cactus Garden My family was kind of tired and ready to be done by the time I insisted that we see the Cholla Cactus Garden. I had read about it in my research, and I wanted to see what all the hype was about. But, it was kind of far away from the rest of the sights we had seen that day. (It wasn't actually that far away. It was just far for a group who was tired and running out of patience.) So every time we saw some cacti with a parking cut-out on the side of the road, someone in the car would go "is that it?" thinking that surely it couldn't be any farther down the road. It actually was pretty amusing that we had been distracted by these other stops, because when we got to the Cholla Cactus Garden, we knew it was it. There were beautiful cacti everywhere. It was way more impressive than any of the other stops we had mistakenly made. This trail is only a quarter-mile loop, but I still highly recommend it. By the time you reach this part of the park, the joshua trees are gone and the cacti have take over. You can see mountains in the background, and it is just a lovely walk. I found myself pointing at cacti and saying "Ooooh, look at this one!" probably a few times too many. At the very least, this park was a stunning drive. It's such an interesting landscape to see all these crazy trees that look like they came straight out of a Dr Seuss book and rock formations that make you feel like you're on a foreign planet from Galaxy Quest. If you're a fan of exploring, I think you'll like this park.
Sequoia was a park that I was really looking forward to seeing on my trip to California. I was as excited about this park as I was about Yosemite. Something about trees that big just boggled my mind when I saw them in photos. I knew I wanted to see them in person, stand next to them, and be blown away by their size. So I did. We only stopped at a few different destinations in this park, because they were so captivating to me. I could have spent even more time at the places we did stop. And we didn't even see close to the whole park.
The Giant Forest is the real show. Yes, there is a whole park to explore, but I had too much fun in Giant Forest to explore much else. The trees are huge. I know I already said that, but it's hard to explain how big they are and feel like you're doing these giant sequoias any justice. There was a stop along the trail, that had an outline on the pavement that was a to-size replica of the base of General Sherman, but at the time I went, the path was so muddy I couldn't really see it that well. I can tell you, though, that probably at least twenty people could have stood in that circle. And had enough room to do a little dance, if they so desired. General Sherman is nearly 103 feet around at its base. And it was among its peers in this forest. I could rattle off facts about all the trees I saw in this forest in an attempt to impress you as much as these trees impressed me, but I think I would fail at that task. They're that impressive. I recommend going to this park yourself and standing next to one (or several) of these giants. Something about them just made me want to walk around this forest for hours. Hopefully these photos will make you want to go see them too. If you've ever been to Yosemite, then you know. If you haven't, I don't know how I can describe its beauty, but I will definitely try. Of course I had heard great things about Yosemite before I went, so I had some high expectations, and it did not let me down. I want to tell you about some of the highlights for me, and hopefully in the process I can paint as close to an accurate picture of the park as possible.
Bridalveil Fall I found that there were some pros and cons to going to Yosemite in April. One of the biggest pros is the waterfalls. Since the winter snow is melting, the waterfalls are spectacular. This particular trail was not too long (half a mile round trip) and, not only did it have a great payoff at the end, but you could see for nearly the whole walk the creek into which the fall was flowing.
Sentinal Beach This one was not even a priority for me. I hadn't seen it as a "must see" in any of my research, but this little picnic area made me stop and realize how beautiful this park really is. I know I have been raving about the beauty of the park for this whole post, and have probably used the word "beautiful" too many times, but I honestly don't think I really was able to take it all in until we stopped at Sentinal Beach for a break. During the days we spent in this park, we never stopped and ate lunch. We always had so much to do that we would just munch on snacks in the car whenever we got a little hungry. Not only is this probably not very healthy, but it never allowed me stop and absorb where I was. We were always on the move. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad we got to see all we got to see. I'm just so grateful that we at least took this one moment at Sentinal Beach to just sit down and hang out for a bit. I was just sitting in the grass looking up at the beautiful rock formations and realized how miraculous they really were. We definitely don't have anything like them in Missouri. Not only would I recommend a stop at Sentinal Beach, but I also recommend stopping at picnic areas like it every once in a while just to let your heart catch up to your mind, which, if it's anything like mine, was saying "go go go" the whole time. Lower Yosemite Fall ![]() This was one of the last stops we made during our time in Yosemite, and it definitely didn't disappoint. The trail to the lower falls is short and easy, and when you make it to the falls, they are misting and I felt like I was in wonderland. I guess I kind of felt like that a lot in this park though. There's just something extra special about waterfalls. They're captivating. Especially ones as large as Yosemite Fall. It's actually the tallest waterfall in North America. But you can't really see that until you get close to end of the loop and look back, which I definitely recommend. What we didn't do Glacier Point: Everything I read about Yosemite said you have to see Glacier Point. They said it's the best view in the park, and you don't even have to hike to see it. You just drive right up. But, I mentioned that there are cons to seeing the park in the spring, and this is probably the biggest one. The road to Glacier Point is closed for the winter. It was closed when we were there, so the only way to see it was a pretty long hike that we didn't have the time for. Half Dome hike: This hike is intense. Or, at least the pictures I saw online made it seem that way. It's the kind of hike I would have loved to do, even though you have to dedicate a whole day to it. However, this hike requires a permit. Not only that, but there is a lottery for those permits, so not everyone who wants one gets one. Even if I could have gotten one, which wasn't statistically in my favor, this trail was also closed for the season when we were there. Ultimately... you should just see this park. There is no way you can know how great it is unless you experience it. It's like the second you step out of your car you're somewhere else. You're in a beautiful outdoor palace where everyone is as entranced as you are. I've heard that some people are put off by the amount of people in Yosemite. Yes, there are a lot of people; it's one of the most visited National Parks in the country, but it felt to me like all the other people were as happy to be there as I was. There were good vibes coming from the crowds of people. The crowds that I was happy to be joining.
Okay, maybe not really lost, but I now have the experience to say, always bring your map. Always. We didn't really have too much of a plan when we went to Kings Canyon. I feel a bit like this park kind of falls in the shadow of Sequoia National Park. They're usually listed together as "Kings Canyon and Sequoia," even on the National Park Service's website. I didn't know until we had arrived at the park that a huge portion of it is pretty much inaccessible this time of year. There is a main road that is closed seasonally, so for us, the only way to reach it would have been an overnight hike which we did not have the time for, and may have been too snowy for what we packed for. So we were exploring a pretty small portion of Kings Canyon, open to the idea of heading in early to Sequoia if we had the time. We didn't. We went in knowing we had to see General Grant Tree, and after talking to a few people at Kings Canyon Visitor Center, we decided on hiking a relatively short trail that was close by, after we saw General Grant. We never made it to that trail. The actual trail that goes around General Grant is less than a mile and has wooden fences guiding the path and preventing people from stomping on General Grant's roots. How could we get lost in that, right? Well, like I mentioned, we weren't really lost. More like distracted... in a place we weren't familiar with... without a map. Since the trail around General Grant is so short and simple, we didn't even think of packing up like we would for a "real" hike. I pretty much just grabbed my backpack with whatever was already in it. Admittedly, I always keep certain standard items in there, like sunscreen, a first aid kit, a knife, etc., but unfortunately, our park maps were not included in those items. It didn't take very long of walking the path around the tree for us to start veering. We left the path to take some photos with fallen trees and some of the other giant sequoias that we were allowed to get close to. When I saw a green blaze nailed to a tree, my curiosity got the best of me. Since we knew the trail that we had intended to hike was close by, we thought maybe these were its blazes. Clearly, we weren't even thinking that through, because even if it was the right trail, we didn't know how far into it we were or which direction we were heading. Nevertheless, we kept following the green blazes. Every once in a while we would consider that we didn't know where we were even going, but we just kept naively thinking that if we just go a little farther, surely we'll make it to the end of the trail. We didn't. I've found out that hiking can often feel like gambling (which clearly I am an expert in, since I spent 10 minutes in a Las Vegas casino on the drive to California). What I mean is that when you are lost on a trail like we were, or even when you're just hiking a long trail that is out and back, rather than a loop, you find yourself weighing whether you should turn back. If you keep going, maybe it will only be a bit farther until the grand pay off at the end, but if it isn't, then you've dug yourself into an even deeper hole. That's how I was feeling on this trail. I knew the farther out we went, then the longer it would take to get back if we did decide to turn back later on. After following these blazes for about an hour and a half or so, we decided to cash out and head back. When we finally made it back to our car, we looked at the map and found out that we had definitely made the right decision to turn around. It would have been miles until we reached the end of the trail, which we found out was indeed not the trail we had planned on hiking, and if we had made it to the end, we would have had to walk several more miles down the road back to our car, which was still parked by General Grant. Since we spent so much time following the wrong trail, we never did get to hike our original plan. But I'd say we definitely got our adventure. |
About the blog.I started this blog in 2017 with the goal of seeing all the U.S. National Parks and writing about them. But as I kept writing and posting, I realized there's so much more I want to document in my life. So, the blog grew into something much broader and even more special to my heart. Archives.
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