Now, how exactly did we arrive at a road trip across California and Arizona for our honeymoon?!  As I mentioned in my prior post, we absolutely love to hike and be outdoors {and were on a budget after our wedding}.  When our budget eliminated Hawaii and Italy, we turned to another place that was pretty high on our must-see lists: Yosemite National Park.  After consulting some maps to see what other sites were in the vicinity, we discovered that Yosemite was within a day’s drive of the Grand Canyon!  Awesome!  Then, we saw Mojave National Preserve was between the two.  Sweet!  And, if we visit the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, we will be so close to Sedona!  And, look, Phoenix is just a couple of hours south of Sedona!  We could just rent a car and start in San Francisco…  Before we knew it, we had planned quite an adventure and we were pumped to see so many amazing places!

This was my first road trip.  I may be easily entertained, but I think it is an awesome way to see this beautiful country that we live in!  Without further ado, I present our road trip {and a fraction of my 1,300 photos from the trip}…

Day 1: Fly into San Francisco.

It was my husband’s first time visiting the city, so we hit the typical tourist attractions: Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman’s Wharf for some chowder and feeding the seagulls {husband’s bad idea}, viewing the sea lions at Pier 39, watching the sun set over the Bay and the city and then warmed up with Irish coffees at Buena Vista Café.

Day 2:  Drive to Yosemite Valley in Yosemite National Forest.

After breakfast in San Fran, we started our road trip adventure!  The thought of a road trip for a honeymoon is probably not appealing to some.  But, let me tell you….the scenery was just amazing!  We saw {and hiked} a few of the places that we have always dreamed of visiting.  With the way we mapped out our trip, we only spent about 3-4 hours in the car per day.  And with views like this, we didn’t mind those few hours in the car.

Yosemite Valley did not disappoint.  It was breathtaking!!  I fell in love with the waterfalls, the Aspens, Half Dome, the fresh air, unspoiled nature and…the peace and quiet.  We saw all of the sights in the Valley, took the short hike to Mirror Lake and just enjoyed our surroundings.

Day 3: Upper Yosemite Falls Hike & Mariposa Grove

After a quick breakfast, we decided to hike the Upper Yosemite Fall trail.  The trail was incredibly steep, with countless switchbacks right at the beginning of the hike and spectacular views of Half Dome, the Valley and an up-close view of the Upper Yosemite Fall as your reward.  If you are physically fit, make time to do this hike.  You will not regret it!

Along the way to Mariposa, we came across Tunnel View.  Tunnel View is a lookout point as you are entering/exiting Yosemite Valley to the South, which offers this stunning view:

Continuing south, we arrived at Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias.  These trees are ENORMOUS!!  We were in complete awe and disbelief at what we were seeing.

It was impossible to capture the size of the Sequoias in photos, for comparison purposes.  But, I was able to get a couple of shots that give you an idea their scale {see below}.  In the picture on the left, you will see three giant Sequoias, with a ranger house {yes, A HOUSE} on the right.  The house is barely taller than the exposed roots.  Amazing.  The photo on the right is of my sweet husband, wearing a grey t-shirt and backpack on the right, walking past the base of a giant Sequoia on his left.

Day 4: Mojave National Preserve

Okay, visiting Mojave happened almost accidentally.  We only elected to visit this national park because we literally had to drive through it or around it to get to Arizona from Yosemite.  I’m so glad we did, because we really enjoyed Mojave!  We hiked the Teutonia Peak Trail, at the north side of the park.  Along the trail, we saw acres and acres of Joshua trees, cacti, tumbleweeds, etc.  As you can see in the below photos, the Teutonia Peak offered a spectacular view of the desert below!

Our next stop in Mojave was a unique experience.  We headed south to Kelso Dunes, which is a towering group of sand dunes that pop up out of nowhere in Mojave.  The trail is a modest 3 miles roundtrip, but entirely made up of deep sand.  I thought I might die trying to make it up the face of those dunes.  It was quite the cardio and leg workout.  But, we made it!  Once again, the hard work brought a huge payoff.  We could see mountains, desert and Joshua trees for miles.

But, do you know what we didn’t see?  We didn’t see tall buildings, traffic, subdivisions, we didn’t hear horns, cell phones or any other noises.  It was so serene and beautiful.  That is what I call a vacation.

Stay tuned for the second part of our adventure in the next installment of Go West!

~ Brittany