After two weeks on the roads at the San Francisco Bay Area, we started to travel to farther locations, as we will see in this second part of my travel log.

Yosemite National Park

Our farthest adventure on this trip was our visit to Yosemite National Park¹. By suggestion of Johnny, another of our local teammates, we searched accommodation near Mariposa², one of the towns nearby the Park. Although there is accommodation or camping zones inside the park, stays outside the park are cheaper. We ended up renting a cabin located 45 minutes away by car.

A car’s truck with supplies and backpacks. — We are ready for the weekend.

After a lot of driving (more than 5 hours) and missing the entrance to our cabin and ending up in an abandoned house from a generic horror videogame, we finally arrived to our destination. Luckily, we avoided human interaction again, as the keys for our cabin were left on a table besides a note.

A note that says: ‘Felipe, go to #4’. — The spook is real.

A cabin with a bed, a chimney and a sofa. — Cabin # 4.

Day 1: Vernal Fall and Nevada Fall

Once inside the park we noticed two things: you have to fight for a parking spot³ and we had cellphone signal, something we didn’t have on our cabin. It seems that the park would lose all of the millennial market share if they didn’t have it. Empowered by 4G signal, we started our hike to trail of Vernal Fall⁴ and Nevada Fall⁵. They are both part of the Merced River, but the first one is located halfway in the path to the second one. Furthermore, the trail difficulty goes up in the second half. As the only reasonable option was to take the difficult alternative, our plan for the day was to take the trail up to the Nevada Fall.

Even if the trail we chose was harder than the average, it was crowded, so you didn’t have a moment totally alone. This contrasts with my previous experience on other National Parks. The crowd and the time of the day when we arrived to Vernal Fall made it difficult to take good photos. On the other hand, the situation was much better at Nevada Fall: we were at a way better time and it was spacier, so avoiding the crowd was much easier.

A person photographing another over a rock in a national park. — My teammates taking the classic tourist-y photos on Vernal Fall with their new cameras.

Photo from above a waterfall, where you can see mountains covered in trees. — Nevada Fall.

Person standing with a camera in hand illuminated by the evening sunlight. — The light before sunset is pretty nice for photography.

After taking the “I was there” photos, we started to walk back to avoid that the night fell when we were on the trail.

Day 2: Tioga Pass

For our second day, we adventured to the Tioga Pass Area. Because the hike of the previous day was pretty tiring, we picked our destinies to only do light hikes. After analyzing the map, we chose Dog Lake⁶ as our first destination. Even though it is not the pretties landscape, we found a tiny frog and I was entertained following it to take a picture.

Lake on a sunny day with pine trees on the opposite shore. — Dog Lake.

A little frog in a clump of roots and vegetation. — This frog seemed to not want her picture taken.

Even if our first hike was light, the next ones were even easier: they were stops at the side of the road. One of the was Lake Tenaya⁷.

Group of four people walking away towards the sunset with trees on the background. — Our mission here is finished.

Lake landscape with a hill covered by trees in the backgound and clouds in the sky. — I really liked the clouds that day.

As our last stop, we went to Olmsted Point⁸. There, ravens walked near the parked cars (maybe to try to steal something >:3).

Photo of a raven posing on a rock. — After a lot of walking between the cars, this raven posed for a moment, so I could take his photo.

A winding path going down and delimited by rocks. — View from Olmsted Point.

That concluded our visit to Yosemite. After that, another 5 hours drive awaited us.

The last weekend

In our last weekend, we tried to to optimize the places to visit, so we went to two different places: Big Basin Park and San Francisco.

Saturday: Big Basin

Big Basin Redwoods State Park⁹ is located halfway between Silicon Valley and the coast, but the road is very narrow and full of curves. The day of our visit had some light rain, but nothing that impeded a hike, so we started the longest one-hour hike ever (SPOILER: it took us three hours).

As a side story, on our way to the park, a red sport car overtook us on a curve, even when we were at the speed limit and the road was wet. We didn’t saw the red car again, so we hope that the driver is safe.

Bottom-up view of the trees in a forest. — All you can see is forest.

Trunk of a fallen tree covered by moss. — This is a tipical view of the forest.

Macro photography of fungi. — In the forest, there is life of all sizes.

Sunday: San Francisco Again

In this visit to San Francisco, we decided to wander in downtown, so we chose the Palace of Fine Arts ¹⁰ as our operations center (i.e., as our parking). At the center of the Palace, there is a classic style dome¹¹ surrounded by a decent sized lagoon. Once we parked, we went for lunch. Thanks to the arcane magics of Google Maps, we ended up eating pizza.

View of the ceiling of a dome, decorated with a geometric pattern composed of pentagons and hexagons. — The ceiling of the Palace of Fine Arts’s Dome.

The dome from the previous photo seen from the opposite shore of the lake. — The lagoon surrounding the Palace.

After regaining energy, we resumed our walk by San Francisco’s hills, but they aren’t too friendly to walk on (well, they aren’t friendly to drive on either). After a short break on Alta Plaza Park¹² and after one of our teammates stopped to check the scores of Colo-Colo’s¹³ match, we went back to our car. As we were arriving to out parking location, we started to wee broken windows in other cars, so we commended ourselves to our favorite pagan deities and started to walk faster. Luckily, nothing happened to our car, but please don’t leave any valuable inside your car if you go to San Francisco.

View of the city from the top of a hill. You can see houses and buildings far away. — San Francisco viewed from Alta Plaza.

Sitting person looking at their phone. — El Albo (Colo-Colo) is a passion.

Front of a orange and pink three-story building. In the street there is a parked car and two people waving at the camera. — A typical street on the fancier areas of San Francisco.

Berkeley

In the evening, we went to Stanford’s natural rival, Berkeley University¹⁴. Even on a weekend, we found a lively campus. Even some street dance groups were rehearsing. The campus campanile catch my attention immediately, as it resembles the one in Universidad de Concepción¹⁵. Afterwards, I learned that the campanile in Concepción was built inspired in Berkeley’s¹⁶.

Night photo of an university campus. A group of people is climbing some stairs. — Even at night on a weekend, the campus had life.

Clock Tower at night time. — Berkeley’s campanile. Or maybe there is a portal to Concepción.

Oakland’s Bridge

To finish our weekend, we went to Oakland Bridge¹⁷. Although it is less famous than the Golden Gate, this bridge has other charms, specially on the light side. Halfway through the bridge, you can go to Yerba Buena Island¹⁸ and Treasure Island¹⁹. The latter is an ex military base that now houses some craft breweries, but we didn’t have to visit them.

Night photo of a bridge. In the opposite side, there are low height buildings and a ship on the shore. Far away there are cranes on a harbor. — Yerba Buena Island connects to Oakland Bridge.

Night photo of a bridge. In the opposite shore, there are illuminated buildings. — The view from Treasure Island.

With other photo of a bridge, I finish the last part of my visit to Silicon. Hasta la próxima!