After two long weeks of resting and eating in Canada, I am ready to go home.  That feeling of restlessness in a small town is starting to set over me again and I want to hit the road. I am getting excited for our upcoming trip to San Francisco. We both went to the Bay City last year for a weekend on one of our mileage runs and fell in love with the area. We promised ourselves that we’d be back to explore more of the West Coast, so this time when Fausto had to go there for a business conference, I decided to tag along.

Golden Gate bridge in the fog

We have a tendency to cram our trips with too many activities, what fun would it be otherwise, right? This time is no different, we’ve planned to get there a few days earlier and rent a car to drive over to Yosemite National Park since it’s only 3 hours away. I love road trips, and as a New Yorker who doesn’t own a car, I definitely miss driving… sometimes.

Yosemite is such a vast park that it would be impossible to see it all in a few days, so our plan is to check out a few key sites and go on some short hikes. The trails here will be a good training for our upcoming trip to Peru. I am excited to see the giant sequoias at Mariposa Grove and hike to Taft Point overlooking the whole Yosemite valley. The idea is to get to the look-out point at sunset and take some awesome pictures.  

Next week, we’ll both be at home in New York, preparing and packing in earnest for both this trip and the trip to Peru. Timing-wise, we’ll get home from San Francisco on Thursday morning and fly out again to Peru on Friday. This doesn’t leave too much time for anything aside from a load of laundry, so we’ll have to do it all at once. Since Fausto and I have quite different ideas on what we want to bring on our trips, it’ll definitely create an interesting packing dynamic. Check back in a few days and read about our travel tips and some of our must-haves for a long flight.