Day 4
We stayed in Marysville the previous night so we had about a 4 hour drive to Yosemite.
We stopped in Sacramento along the way because Dee wanted me to buy her some Philz Coffee. It’s a company that’s only in CA and some fighter she follows is always talking about their mojito coffee – which I got – and it was amazing.
We also heard about Old Sacramento which is set up to be from the Gold-Rush era and has cobblestone roads and wood walkways, super cute area to walk around. We were there so early in the morning – not a ton was open but I could see it being cute.
Driving into Yosemite
We drove down 120 all the way into the Valley.
WHAT A DRIVE. There were so many beautiful views. We stopped a few times to look around (like at Woods Creek).
Also scariest drive because as you get closer, I think a main road was closed and we had to basically drive up a mountain with no railing on the side of it. If we dropped we were going straight down and it was a LONG way on that road. I was terrified.
TIP – You lose service so make sure you have maps or know the route or cache the info on your phone!
As you enter the valley, there are a lot of places to pull over and take pictures but you haven’t seen anything yet! I saw just get in and get a parking spot because parking was ROUGH. We got there about 2pm and there wasn’t much traffic getting in at that point (leaving was a different story).
Yosemite
We only had a little bit of time here so we really just walked around. We walked some of the paths in the valley, walked to the lower portion of Yosemite Falls. Super easy path and easy to view. I wish we would have had time to do the upper Falls hike but we didn’t.
There’s also a crazy Half Dome hike you could do, again, we didn’t have time or the mental capacity that day.
But we maybe were here for 3 or 4 hours because then we had to make it to Fresno by the evening.
So I think we left by 6pm and it was actually kind of crowded getting out at that time, so just be patient, let me go in front of you and just take your time.
This is definitely a stop we’d like to do again when we have more time.
TIP – Wear layers, we went in the Spring but you’re in the mountains. I was cold and hot after walking a bit but I’m glad I had long sleeves and pants on!
Overview
There aren’t any really big cities close to be able to drive in and out of Yosemite, my suggestion would be get a cabin right outside of Yosemite if you plan to do all day hikes and get there early. We stopped in Sacramento and stuff that took away time from having a full day in Yosemite. But that’s what this trip was, a little taste of everything!
Yosemite is so vast and huge and there’s soo much to see, I think even if you spent a few days you’d still leave feeling like there so much more to do and see, so pick a few hikes you want to do and enjoy the time you get in nature!
