Day 14 of our trips seem to be jinxed. In 2017 it was the day we woke up in San Francisco to two broken car windows and most of our backpacking gear missing. Knowing this, we decided to go somewhere as rural as possible in 2018 to avoid any possibility of a repeat. Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument seemed pretty safe, but somehow we developed a flat tire after touring the East side of the park by car. Fortunately the flat tire was quickly patched by an awesome guy in Ajo, AZ so we seem to be trending in the right direction.
As we began planning for 2019 we seriously discussed the possibility of just staying in a hotel with 24 hour automotive security and not going anywhere for the day. That seemed a bit wasteful of the time we have so we’ve settled on a plan that we hope will keep us out of trouble while still allowing us to experience a bit of Yosemite National Park.
We’ll wake up in a Half Dome Village “tent cabin”. The name is pretty apt. They’re not quite tents in that they have a floor, beds, and electricity. They’re also certainly not quite cabins as they’re noticeably lacking solid walls and windows. We’ve stayed in them once before and the experience was completely unexciting, making it a promising start to the day.
We’ll spend the morning hiking somewhere in Yosemite. This is one of the hikes we’re still trying to figure out, so if you have a favorite send a note our way! We’ve decided that we will definitely not be doing one that is too intense though. We’re skipping the Panorama Trail this year and will tackle the Yosemite Falls Trail on Day 13. Something pretty and low-key will hopefully make it perfectly innocuous morning. We’ll picnic on PBJ&C before heading out in the early afternoon for a 6 hour drive (on paved highways) to a nondescript Holiday Inn Express. I don’t want to press our luck too much, but maybe there will be a place for a beer when we get there.