Yosemite National Park 🏔🔥

Good morning from Fresno, California!

This morning we are headed into Yosemite! This is my favorite place on earth, and I am so excited to be here with all 4 of us!

I brought Alan here when we were dating and I brought the girls one year when I was traveling with my parents to visit my grandparents, but we have never all been together.

I had so much planned for this weekend in Yosemite but everything changed when we got to Fresno and saw the news of a wildfire in south Yosemite. It had started Thursday evening and they had to evacuate and close the south road leading into Yosemite. The road we had planned to take in.

The west entrance into the valley was still open so we decided to drive the extra hour and half and go that way.

The drive in gave us a great view of the smoke from the fire. It was sad to see but its a way of life out here, fire season is a thing. And as I write this over two weeks later that fire is still burning. 🔥

Thankfully for us the fire was staying away from the valley so we could still visit and do everything on my list. The smoke however had filled the valley. We grabbed a picture by the sign and you could see and smell the smoke.

We joined the extremely long line of cars waiting to get into the park. We waited almost two hours to enter the park, but when we finally made it in it was worth every minute! I just love Yosemite!! 😍

Our first order of business was to get a family picture in my favorite spot, this spot happens to be on the road into the valley coming from the south. Thankfully we were still able to go up the road to my favorite spot, Inspiration point. I have dreamed of a picture of my family in this spot for many years. It might sound silly, but this place holds the majority of my childhood memories. We camped here every year as a kid, hiked with my parents, brought my friends and spent many a nights in a cabin here in the winter. I even rode on my dads shoulders as a little girl through this park or on my dads back in a backpack as a baby. So this, this is my place and I wanted a picture with the whole valley below, El Capitan (my favorite) to the left, bridalveil falls to the right, and Half Dome at center stage!

Well…not exactly what my dream looked like but I was here with my family and smoky or not I was getting this picture!!

You can’t see Half Dome at all and Bridalveil is pretty much non existent…but we are here and it is just the best feeling in the world…minus the smoke filling our lungs! 🤦🏻‍♀️

I love to drive out of this tunnel and see the valley, but since the road is closed Bree and I took advantage of no one coming through it!

We made a decision to not let the smoke ruin our day so we set out for our first order of business…we had to cancel our reservations in a tent cabin in the valley. The smoke was too much for us to be in a tent where Ry would inhale it every time she breathed.

This is where we would have stayed…but the Lord was looking out for us. They fully refunded it due to medical issues and they have been having squirrel problems in the tent, which Bree is terrified of, so we dodged that too!

Next up, the trail to Vernal falls! We left Curry Village and headed to Happy Isles on foot. They have closed a lot of the park to shuttle buses only so we decided to hoof it. This park is so beautiful it was nice to walk! We reached the trailhead and headed off, this trail is part of the John Muir trail, a trail which my dad has hiked in it’s entirety many times. He has told the girls many stories so they were excited to be on it. This trail to vernal falls I have hiked many times and I wanted the girls to see it…welp that didn’t happen. We made it up a few minutes then Ryanna needed her inhaler and Alan decided it wasn’t worth her having so many issues. So we snapped a few photos at the overlook and headed back down.

We decided after our venture to cool off in the Merced River, it was freezing!!! 🥶 Alan wanted no part in that!

After this we headed back to curry village, this time we caught the bus back! Once we got back to our car we headed over to the Awahnee for some ice cream and to show the girls the beautiful hotel!

Then we were off to the village for dinner and souvenir shopping.

While we ate we realized it didn’t seem to be as smoky as before. Sure enough the smoke was actually clearing the valley. We finished dinner with Bree panicking because a squirrel wouldn’t leave her alone. He kept running around her feet under the table! 🤣

Alan said we should try for inspiration point pictures again and I am so glad he did. It makes me tear up just thinking about them! It was so beautiful!

This is what my dreams were made of!! 🥰

There are tons more pics we took but I won’t put them all here…just a few!

The most beautiful view…thank you Lord!

Here you can see the smoke just outside the valley, I don’t know if the Lord did this just for me, but I would like to think He did. The Lord knows the desires of my heart!

After a good long time at inspiration point we were chasing daylight so we headed off to see Yosemite Falls when we crossed this bridge and saw the most beautiful sight! Half Dome!!!

Off to the falls!!!

We reached Yosemite Falls as the sun was disappearing but we hiked to the lookout and still got a beautiful view!

The girls both climbed in the split rock on the way, one I have climbed in many times and I am sure I have a pic of them when we first came to Yosemite climbing in it!