Thanksgiving Road Trip: California in a Week

Day 3: Yosemite

The Yosemite Valley is a gorgeous thing — completely epic to behold – but it’s also something that really requires more than just a few hours to enjoy. We left our cabin at the Evergreen Lodge to make the hour-long drive into the valley from the park’s northern entrance. The roads twisted and turned along the mountainside until we were dropped off just north of the main drag into the visitor’s center. It was here that we were reminded that just a few months earlier, forest fires ravaged Yosemite. Our view was made clear not by high elevation, but by the lack of foliage on scorched trees. Luckily, the valley itself was unmarred, but we were left with a sinking feeling in our stomachs that we paid too little attention to the news of fires from our east coast homes; acres upon acres of land were completely charred.

Upon entering the Valley, your eyes are immediately drawn to the park’s largest rock formations, El Capitan and Half Dome. Rising thousands of feet into the sky, they’re visible from just about any point in the park. To get our bearings, we dropped by the visitor’s center and asked for directions. Unfortunately for us, Yosemite almost requires a few days in the park to really accomplish any of the notable activities, and we only had a few hours to spend. That just means we’ll revisit this one in the future. Instead, we hopped out of the Audi, walked the meadows (where we nearly crossed paths with a black bear), and drove up to Tunnel View, where you can see the entire valley below you. From there, we mapped our way to San Francisco, where we planned to stay for the holiday.

Days 4-6: The Bay Area

The drive from Yosemite to San Francisco doesn’t offer much to write home about; it’s mostly farmland with the occasional windmill. Even so, we enjoyed the haul back to the city, and for the first time on the trip, decided to switch the Q5’s suspension to “Comfort,” rather than “Dynamic.” Oh, what a difference that made on the highway. It’s not that we were ever uncomfortable, but there is a very distinctive difference between these settings. The dampeners go soft in comfort mode, soaking up the road’s imperfections, instead of highlighting them. We’re glad the car offered both, because we really felt like we got the most out of winding roads in dynamic mode, too.

We spent the next couple of days hanging around the bay area with one of my best friends and college roommate. After all, she’s the reason that we decided to spend our Thanksgiving in California in the first place. Her fiancé works for the Air Force and was deployed for the UAE, and we didn’t want Whitney to spend her Thanksgiving alone. Instead, we saw the sea lions at Pier 39, had brunch in Sausalito, visited Muir Woods, snapped photos at the Golden Gate Bridge, and went to see Cirque du Soleil’s Amaluna. We also cooked a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with a honey-baked ham, sweet potato soufflé, an apple crisp, and crispy (my fault) Brussels sprouts. After dinner, we walked over to a neighbor’s house for wine and desserts, where we had the chance to relive the stories of our road trip all over again.