18th January: Yosemite

The day before, the guys forgot a shopping bag at the supermarket. After a phone call, where it was offered that they get reimbursed (which I found really customer friendly) we decided that we’d pick it up that day, because we had to drive past anyway. Then we excitedly headed off to Yosemite National Park, following our GPS as usual. Once we arrived there we were told that we shouldn’t trust the GPS and because of weather conditions this entrance was closed and we had to go back all the way to then take another highway. That detour cost us around 1-1.5 hours. We again didn’t have to pay for entrance because of the government shutdown. The guy who handed us a map of Yosemite Park, who worked on a voluntary basis, looked exactly how one would imagine: He had a long beard and long hair, just like out of a movie. We wanted to give him some tip, because we felt bad that we didn’t pay for the parks anywhere and that people didn’t get paid for their work, but we didn’t have any cash, because we paid via credit card everywhere. We went straight to the famous tunnel view:

Here are some more photos of driving around Yosemite National Park:

After we wanted to go for a walk, but still had to eat. As always we heated up our food, this time in a little shop. Because of the earlier delay it was already 15:00 and so we didn’t have time for any longer walks than the 2 mile return walk to the Mirror Lake. It was a walk on only flat ground and to my disappointment we didn’t really adopt a sporty speed which would have compensated for sitting in the car all day long. However, we did climb some rocks and got some amazing pictures of the lake that got famous because it mirrors the beautiful landscape.

It was already sunset when we returned and so we had to leave for San Francisco which was supposed to be a 3.5 hour drive still. The GPS suddenly told us not to take the road we came from, but instead one that would take 4.5 hours. We were a bit scared we would have to go back all the way again, if we now take the wrong way, but we decided not to trust the GPS this time and thankfully we could indeed go the shorter way.  At a gas station I was super excited about eating my first real American hotdog.

We arrived in San Francisco at 21:00. I was incredibly tired again, so I went straight to sleep. A friend had already warned me that housing in San Francisco was crappy as the landlords could rent places out for high prices without having to renovate them. Indeed, even though our Airbnb was outside San Francisco, in Redwood City, the walls were comparable to cardboard. We could hear every step of the others and everything from outside. This night the majority of the group didn’t sleep very well. Additionally, it was the first time we only had one bathroom (and one toilet in it) for our whole group. We were a bit sad that we were going to stay for 2 more nights in a house like this instead of the one the night before. 

Written by Julia Heuritsch | Uploaded on 21st January 2019