Our 7 Year, 5 Month, One Week Anniversary

Dave and I have decided we will be celebrating our Anniversary on our Half Anniversary, meaning we will celebrate in the summer instead of the dead of winter right before Christmas. This year we celebrated a little early but really who's keeping track. We went to Yosemite for a 2 day, 1 night get-away, no kids. We loved it.

We stayed at this cute little bed and breakfast called The Blackberry Inn. It is about an hour outside of Yosemite Valley. We left Friday morning and stopped for lunch then checked in to our B&B. Then we drove into Yosemite and started the fun. We did a hike that we thought was called Artist Point but when we got to the trail head it was called something completely different, Inspiration Point or maybe we were in the wrong place but it was the only trail head by Valley View. Anyway, it was hot and really reminded me of how out of shape I am but we had fun.

Like I said, it was hot.

When we got back down, we headed to Yosemite Falls. We expected more of a hike (the site we looked up was way off on distances...and names apparently). It took us like 2 minutes to get to the waterfall. It was more of a stroll then a hike. But it was still beautiful, and nice after the hot hike we'd just been on. We played in the stream farther down for a little bit too. It had a couple cute little bridges.

After that we headed back to our B&B stopping for some dinner and then a good night's sleep. We had breakfast at the B&B the next morning and got to meet some of the other people staying there. They were from all over, Utah, the south, and Germany. So cool. Then we checked out and headed back to Yosemite. We did The Mist Trail which included both Vernal and Nevada Falls. It was hard but so worth it. The first part was paved until you get to the bridge at the bottom of the first fall, Vernal Falls.

Then you start to head up towards the top of the fall. It is stairs the whole way and you understand why it's called The Mist Trail. You get wet from all the mist coming from the fall. That's how close you hike to it. I thought it was the coolest thing ever! I loved it! I did have to take quite a few breaks to catch my breath and give my burning thighs a break but it was so fantastic and beautiful!

And we made it! The view from the top is amazing too! Here we took a long break and ate lunch.

Then we started the trek up again to Nevada Falls. This was completely different. It started as more of a woodsy dirt trail and then it became rock. It's also steps but without the luxury of the mist to keep you cool. You do see Nevada Fall between the dirt trail and rock steps but then it disappears and you climb up the side and come up behind it. This was also hard and again we made a lot of stops. It was really steep too. As people were coming down, I was really grateful that we had decided to come down a different trail. It looked really scary for the people coming down.

We eventually made it to the top! I was so happy! We did it! It was hard but worth every ache! We took another long break to rest our feet before heading downt. That water was freezing, obviously.

We headed down by way of The John Muir Trail. Compared to the way up, it was pretty boring. Plus at that point, I hurt so much that every step was painful. It was switch backs all the way down until we met up with The Mist Trail at the bottom of the Vernal Falls. And then it was back down the paved path and to our cars to rest our weary bones. We did the math and figured we hiked about 7 1/2 miles and over 20,000 steps (thanks to the help of someone's FitBit, we were able to keep tabs). It was such a fun trip and I can't wait to go back. Spring is the perfect time to go because the falls are still flowing. A month later and they would probably have been all dried up. Dang drought.