Most Epic Road Trip Ever.

Sonoma Lake

We have arrived at our final destination of the road trip, San Francisco! We were lucky enough to spend the day on Sonoma lake yesterday with my dad and his friend Scott. Our friend Michelle came with Christina and I to the lake where we all tested our water sports skills and got whipped around on the inner-tube. It was a gorgeous day and the perfect opportunity to finish our leftover keystone light and use the little bit of energy we had left. Michelle and Christina both showed off their kick-ass wake boarding skills. Thanks so much dad for a wonderful day on the lake!

Yosemite National Park

The final and most epic stop on the most epic road trip ever... Yosemite National Park! As we pulled in early Wednesday morning we were pleasantly surprised with 80 degree weather and were told that we just happened to get there within the 3 day span of what was claimed to be the best 3 days to be in Yosemite this year. Of course though, if the weather is great, the campgrounds fill up quick and arriving at 10:30am wasn't early enough for an in-park reservation. Unconcerned and happy to save a few extra dollars, we set up camp (for free) just outside the park on Hardin Flat Road before heading in.

Our first stop was just as we entered the park when we saw a gorgeous viewpoint of the park and couldn't help but stop for a quick photo shoot.

A gorgeous view walking around lower Yosemite falls.

Upper and lower Yosemite falls.

After biking and hiking around the park for the afternoon we decided the last things we wanted to see were the Vernal and Nevada falls. We began the hike around 6pm assuming we would be back no later than 8, just in time to make dinner and head back to the campsite. About halfway through the hike we began to see people heading down from the hike, most of which seemed to be drenched from head to toe. Unprepared and disillusioned, we continued the hike assuming we would just turn back before the mist from the falls hit us. However, we turned the corner, saw one of the biggest waterfalls and most beautiful rainbows we have ever seen, and knew there was no turning back. This was officially the most epic hike of our lives!

Drenched but ecstatic we continued to climb the steep and slippery steps.

View from the top of the falls - we made it!

After a long day in Yosemite we got a good nights rest and woke up early to see one last sight, Hetch Hetchy. We climbed some rocks and found the perfect spot to eat our lunch with a gorgeous view of two waterfalls. We both agreed, Yosemite was by far the perfect ending to our epic road trip. We have already started making plans to return soon.

Our furry un-friend and the broken radio...

When we woke up in the rainforest and started to pack the car, we noticed a critter scurrying around in the trunk...we were told that some mice had been getting into cars at the campground so we proceeded to unload the entire car and look for the mouse, but we were unsuccessful. We did however find its new home it created for itself out of the toilet paper in the car. We disposed of its nest and figured since we couldn't find it that it must have left the car.

We were not happy when we found a new nest in the trunk of our car when we were camping in Elkton, Oregon. We decided we had to do something about the creature living in the trunk so when we got to Klamath Falls we bought some mouse traps and set them up in the car while we were camping at the Redwood National Forest. Our attempts to catch the mouse have been unsuccessful, and now all we have to prove of the mouse's existence is our broken radio and its nest remnants. (No, we still have not found the bastard.)

We're pretty sure the mouse chewed through a wire for the radio since we turned it off and heard a loud popping sound and smelled something burning...some road trippers may have a hard time continuing the trip without a radio, but we kept ourselves entertained by practicing our what started out as southern but turned into our hillbilly accents.

Tip #8 - Free Camping

One of the reasons we choose to camp on our road trip is that we knew it would be much less expensive than staying in hotels. We stayed at various campgrounds ranging in price from about $10-$25 a night. What we later learned is that you can actually camp for free in all National Forest areas as long as its not on private property or part of a national park. Free camping means you probably have to rough it with no bathrooms or facilities but you can't beat the price!

Tip #8a - Be friendly to the environment and invest in some biodegradable toilet paper!

Tip #7 - Annual U.S. National Park Pass

We were able to see 6 different National Parks on our road trip, with our first one being Zion National Park. There we made the smart decision to purchase an annual national park pass which we used to get entry into all of the parks we visited. The park pass cost us $80, and adding up the individual entry cost of all the parks we visited would have been over $100. Even though the road trip is coming to an end, we can use the pass for the rest of the year which has encouraged us to return to some of the beautiful places we've visited and places we haven't.

Sacramento, California

After our reservations for Twin Lakes near Yosemite were cancelled due to snow, Devin and I had to reconfigure our Yosemite plans. Unknowing what the weather would be like and assuming that most campsites in the park were already reserved, we thought it would be best to stay somewhere close to Yosemite and just drive in the day of our visit. Luckily, some of my closest friends live in Sacramento and were more than happy to let us stay with them. This also gave us the opportunity to visit the state capital which neither of us had been to.

Big thanks Matthew McCleary and Marissa Matheny! Sacramento was the perfect resting stop before hitting up beautiful Yosemite!!!

Redwood National Forest

We left Klamath early Monday morning to head out to the Redwood National Forest and we were very happy that Jordan was able to join us. Before getting ready for our big hike on the Hiochi trail we stopped near the river to make a quick lunch.