“A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” – Tim Cahill
So, my last post ended with me crashing out after spending a jet lagged day roaming around San Francisco. But that was only the start of my adventure:
11.09.2017
Day 3: San Francisco to Yosemite
Our first day of the trip and we were leaving San Fran at 8 in the morning – ew. I can’t remember exactly but I’m pretty sure that neither mine nor Mia’s alarms went off that morning, or if they did we just ignored them haha. What a way to start the trip. Luckily we both woke up in time naturally anyway, so our first possible disaster was averted. When we got downstairs we saw our ‘coach’ for the first time, a little white minibus called Gail. I’ll tell you now, I do not miss her! After stuffing our bags in the trailer, we got on the bus to meet the 3 people who had already spent 3 weeks driving across America on the northern route tour. Another girl was supposed to be with them but she had lost her phone and passport on the drunken night before so was sorting that out before coming to meet us later. I feel like that should have warned me how crazy some of the nights were going to be, but I was still blissfully ignorant at that time.
As we left, the first thing we did was choose our ‘roadtrip song’. We decided to go with the song that the others had used on the trip before – ‘On the Road Again’. Yes we were very original. We played this song whenever we first got on the bus and I still can’t hear it now without feeling the weirdest mix of happy and sad. I also don’t sing the proper version, I sing the Sophie Bell remix. If anyone from the trip is reading this you’ll know exactly what I mean – no song is safe haha! After that we all introduced ourselves again and told everyone 1 funny fact about ourselves. It was a bit awkward at first, but as we talked we all started to feel a little bit more comfortable with each other. I also discovered that I had been pronouncing Yosemite wrong (think Vegemite) but luckily I was not the only one so I didn’t feel too stupid.
On our way to Yosemite National Park we did our very first Walmart stop to buy food and alcohol. I know it’s only a supermarket, but it was quite exciting, you can buy literally anything in there. Including guns, which is something I don’t really agree with but that’s a story for another day.
When we got to our camp we put up our tents for the first time, which was a lot easier than I expected. That was the first night I shared a tent with Liv, who became my tentie/roomie for the rest of the trip. What started as bonding over our mutual nervousness about the trip and general disgust at sleeping on the floor turned into a beautiful friendship. Genuinely don’t think either of us would have survived the camping without having each other to witness our bitch fits and calm each other down! Our tent neighbours Gabi and Anna also became our neighbours for the rest of the trip. Without even realising it, we always pitched up next to each other, and the Girl Band was formed.
We spent our first evening swimming in the freezing cold river by the campsite, and sneaking into the hotel pool to use the hot tub. Whilst I really enjoyed the cities, there’s just something really nice about just chilling in a river drinking beer, and spending the night swapping stories over a campfire.
12.09.2017
Day 4: Yosemite
Both Liv and I were happily surprised that we slept quite well on our first night in a tent. If only that had lasted longer than one night.
After our first camp breakfast we spent the day hiking in Yosemite National Park. Whilst some of the guys were absolutely mental and hiked up to the top of the falls, a group of us decided to do the shorter hike to a place called Vernal Falls. Even though it was a shorter hike, it was still all uphill and pretty tough. For part of it we even had to climb up a load of rocks that were soaking wet from waterfall spray. Super safe I know. After that we just wandered around a bit, had a picnic by a pretty pathetic excuse for a lake and then went at sat in the visitors centre for (yeah you guessed it) a beer.
Luckily we were staying in the same camp as the night before, so we didn’t have anything to set up when we got back. We spent the evening pretty much the same as the night before. I even managed to find a perfect rock to sit on in the middle of the river so I didn’t even have to waste any energy trying to fight against the current. I take being lazy to new levels.
After 2 days in Yosemite we were finally ready to head through the desert towards Vegas baby! But that deserves a whole post of it’s own.
Until next time my angels,
Aimee x
(If you’re interested you can find more posts about my trip here.)
The Life of an Aspiring Writer 