Yosemite

You guys, Yosemite is amazingly beautiful. It is also amazingly CROWDED. Jackson, ever the liar, told me that he wanted to do an easy hike when we first got there to warm up.

Easy was a roughly 1 mile climb STRAIGHT UP the side of a mountain. Sure, it was a paved path but I'm certain I saw at least 5 people die attempting to make it to the top. OK, that isn't true. It was torturous, though. I'm talking 15+ incline on the treadmill climbing at altitude. People kept stopping to take breaks in the middle of the path. Sigh. I'll blame the altitude for their lack of sense.

How I looked after our "easy" hike

The view was stunning, though.

Happy Jackson

Tired Jenna

The Falls

"I look tough!"

Yosemite.

Hiking.

This kid accurately portrayed how I felt on that hike.

I loved the rocks!

More rushing water

Seriously gorgeous.

Yep. Still pretty.

Still.

After we did the hike we decided to go get some lunch. We'd read about this hotel tucked deep into the park. The magazine article we read called the prices "fair" for good food. Clearly this person lived in NYC or something.

The Ahwahnee Hotel

Jackson mapping out where to go next

It was $40 for a sandwich and an order of hummus. Yes. We SPLIT a sandwich and had an order of hummus and it was $40! How is that fair?! Who calls that fair?!

Behold a $40 lunch!!!!! This photo makes it appear to be more than it was, admittedly.

Once we finished lunch and explored some more we realized that we just weren't loving the park like we thought we would. It was just so, so crowded. We decided to make an early exit since we had a long drive ahead of us to our next city.

A LARGE waterfall

On the drive out we did stop some and get a little solitude so we could truly enjoy the park.

Yosemite makes you feel small.

Jackson losing himself in the beauty

Jackson finding himself being silly

The view on the drive out of the park

Jackson on top of the world :)

We had what felt like the longest drive ever to Roseville, CA that evening. We got stuck in gnarly traffic outside of Sacramento before finally making it to the 'burbs for the night. We got dinner there and went to bed early as we had to get to whitewater rafting early this morning. Wish us luck!!