In the middle of July, 2020, we decided to head out to California to visit my brother and sister-in-law, and their new baby Graham! We flew out on July 10 during the pandemic, which made it a pretty interesting trip. Luckily, our Southwest flight had only 60-ish people on it, and we just tried to be as careful as possible wearing our N95 masks.
We ended up getting a pretty good deal on a really new apartment in downtown Mountain View. Score! I suspect there wasn’t a lot of demand for vacation housing because of the pandemic.

We proceeded to spend as much time in the evenings and weekend days as we could holding Graham, at least without trying to overstay our welcome! Neither of us have ever spent time around babies, except when we were very young, so that was a cool new experience. Graham is very cute, and we miss him dearly now that we are back in Colorado. We are already plotting our next trip to see him! We got dozens of super cute baby pics, but we’ll respect their privacy and won’t post on here. We love you, Graham!
Besides for all the fun with Graham, Bryan and Amy, we did a few hikes and even managed to spend two days in Yosemite. We spent a few afternoons walking around Mountain View, even exploring the super empty Google complex.








Because of the pandemic, Yosemite National Park was only allowing people in via reservations and we snagged a last-minute reservation for Wed/Thurs in the park. We stayed overnight in a small “lodge” outside the Groveland gate… it wasn’t the nicest, but it worked as last minute accommodations.
The first day we drove up from our rental in Mountain View to the park, so we didn’t get there until maybe 10am. The first thing we did was a short hike to the Tuolumne Sequoia Grove. It was a super easy hike, maybe a couple miles and all paved (there is a road that goes to it that is closed to traffic now).






After that we headed down to the valley to get a look at the famous climbing walls we’ve heard so much about. El Capitan and Half Dome were SUPER impressive, and we even took a short hike up to the base of El Cap. Simply stunning that Alex Honnold free-soloed up that in less than four hours. Just unbelievable!











After the short hike to El Cap in the sweltering Valley heat, we took a quick dip in the Merced River. Surprisingly, there were many people on the various sandbars and such sunbathing and even folks floating around on tubes/inflatables. What a weird experience in a national park! Very refreshing.
Making the most of the day, we headed up towards Glacier Point to get the overview of the valley. Amazing! A must see for a visit to the park. The lighting was also incredible for us, with storms in the background and sunlight behind us. Sorry for all the repeat views, it was hard to narrow down the selections to this!











After the drive up to Glacier Point, we stopped at Tunnel View for a few quick shots and started the long drive back to our “lodge” for the night. All in all, a jam-packed and successful day in Yosemite! We got a little sunburnt, though.



The next day we headed out around 6am to get into the park early. Our friend Jen recommended the Cathedral Lakes hike in Tuolumne Meadows – great recommendation! Thanks Jen!



The hike was about 8 miles in total, and was on the John Muir Trail. We hope to one day get to hike the whole trail! What a spectacular landscape – it kind of reminded us of the upper areas of Zion National Park, but with white stone and more expansive views.

The first lake, lower Cathedral Lake, was spectacular and we had it all to ourselves!


The second lake, upper Cathedral Lakes, was also beautiful. We almost had it to ourselves – all besides some skinny dippers across the lake. Good thing the sun was shining because I’m sure the water was chilly!


All in all, we had a great time in California. The pandemic definitely puts a damper on 2020, but spending time with Bryan, Amy and Graham was a little glimmer of joy! We can’t wait to see you guys again. Maybe we’ll take Graham backpacking on the JMT when he gets older!
-Kyle