TK's Overnight Trips: Yosemite National Park

22 years I've lived in California and I've never been to Yosemite!  What the fuck.  So when Moms said she wanted to road trip somewhere, I figured let's kill two birds with one stone.  One of them could be Mom!  JOKE.  Sort of.  Anyway, off we went to Yosemite on Wednesday morning.

Drive drive drive.  Finally get to Yosemite around 1:30 p.m.  It's beautiful, just as advertised.

Here's the thing with Mom: she is a fucking pain in the ass to travel with.  Me and The Wife are kind of casual, hey-whatever-happens-happens travelers, but Mom is FOCUSED and DIALED IN and that means LET'S GET TO THE VISITOR CENTER ASAP because a trip MUST BEGIN with a visit to the Visitor Center. 

In Yosemite, the parking area for the Visitor Center is about a 1/2 mile away from the VC.  Mom's getting up there and she doesn't walk so fast and so we spent a good hour of daylight in the 24 hours we have in Yosemite slowly walking along a pathway between a parking lot and a Visitor Center that, upon arrival, Mom decided she wasn't that interested in.

But don't get me wrong; it is a truly stunning place.  Yesterday morning we took about a 2-mile hike through the Mariposa Grove with all these giant redwoods and shit.  Unbelievable.  Pro tip: If you're going to do this, get there early, because we had it mostly to ourselves until around 10:30 when school groups started arriving.

They have these tram tours which we were initially terrified that Mom was going to force us to do because she loves any kind of tourist shit like that but when she found out they charge $26.50 for the tram tour she shut that idea down in a fucking hurry because the only quality that wins out over her touristness is her cheapness.

I know it sounds like I'm bitching a lot, and I guess I am, but it really is tiring traveling with someone who constantly approaches strangers to ask what country they're from and uses the term "Orientals" unironically and refuses to tip in restaurants and is a martyr on top of the whole thing.

I want to go back, though.

2 things: (1) The Comfort Inn in Oakhurst is relatively cheap, really comfortable, and not far from the south entrance to the park; and (2) Lunch at the Wawona Hotel is less expensive than you'd think and totally worth it.