Yosemite - aka holy crap bear central!

After time with our buddies, we split off and Rob and I went to Yosemite for a few days - it was amazing.  I had never been before and Rob had only driven through briefly, so we both had an amazing experience spending time together in such a glorious place.

The first day, we spent time at the giant sequoias and hiked around a bit - it was so cool!

There were a bunch of people around though, so we decided to do a fairly remote 7 mile hike back to our hotel.  We started out around 4:30 in the afternoon and it was gorgeous - it was fairly shaded and super quiet.  We were having an amazing time and then a few hours into the hike, we were coming around a blind switchback and then BOOM - ran into a bear.  A huge bear.  Right in front of me about 20 feet!!  It was so scary since we were by ourselves, I had a backpack full of granola bars and we had just scared the bejesus out of a huge furry beast.  It's funny in retrospect, I think the bear and I probably had the same huge eyed expression when we saw each other.  Anyhoo - we backed up quickly, keeping our eyes down and quickly made a plan.  We both picked up sticks, I checked my cell phone in case we needed help (yah, no go there, no service), I took the nice camera out of my backpack in case I needed to ditch the granola-bar bear-bait and then we started yelling and whistling.  We tiptoed very slowly forward since he was sitting on the path the last we saw him, and luckily he had moved up the mountain a bit - watching us the whole time.  He had moved about 50 feet away and I had the weirdest thought go through my head to take a pic of him in case it was the last shot on my camera and people never found us - hey there morbid girl, haha!  So, here's a super blurry shot (because I was shaking like a freakin' leaf!) of our big furry buddy who I'm so grateful to for not eating us.

The whole hike back, we kept checking our 6, we thought every log was a bear, and we were so stressed out - but the funny thing was, we were singing loudly, and yelling the weirdest stuff as we walked around the switchbacks just in case there were other bears.  We're such weirdos.  Wouldn't you have loved to be a fly on the wall watching the shenanigans coming from the Warrenskis? But we're alive and that's all that matters.

The next day we hit a bunch of the different gorgeous sights, Glacier Point:

Bridalveil Falls:

Tunnel View of the Valley:

We hiked to the lower Yosemite Falls:

And then we took our mega hike of the day to the Wapama Falls at Hetch Hetchy Resevoir - so amazingly gorgeous and worth every blister it took to get there!  It was super hot - the car showed 104 degrees, so needless to say, it felt amazing to be misted down...I could have stayed there forever!

Glorious - the power of these falls was incredible!  Apparently the reservoir holds 117 BILLION gallons of water and is the source of water for San Francisco.  It's so cool.

On the way there and back we saw more bears!!  Luckily from our car this time (WAY better than 20 feet in front of my face), and on the way home - we saw a mama with 2 babies!!!  It was tough to get them on camera since we were reluctant to get too close and piss mama off, but at least here's a few shots of one of the little ones - they were sooo tiny!!  Cute overload!!

Baby!!!  He's right behind that little tree on the left, I know it's hard to see him but you can picture him about the size of a really fluffy Galileo.  He's so super tiny!

And here's the rest of our pics if you want to check them out, enjoy!

Vacay!!!

Last week we went up the coast with our buddies - we had booked this trip over a year and a half ago, so how's that for waiting for a good thing?  It was an amazing experience, the perfect mix of relaxation, laughter and friendship.

We drove up halfway the first day and stayed at a beautiful resort in Santa Barbara for the night..

 

We drove up the coast the next day and it was SO worth it for the view - gorgeousness through Big Sur!!

It was hilarious, we were cruising along and randomly saw zebras out of the blue?  There's something you don't see every day!

And while we were on the wildlife kick, we stopped to check out the elephant seals - adorbs!

And then we finally made it!!! Pebble Beach is absolutely gorgeous.  We were staying at the Inn at Spanish Bay, the northern-most property there.  It was so fun, we sat outside at the fire pits, cozied up under blankets, enjoying the scenery and listening to the bagpiper.

The 2nd day the guys golfed at Spyglass and that night we got all fancy-pants and went to a nice restaurant on the property, it was fun to get all gussied!

 The 3rd day the guys golfed Pebble and were OVER THE MOON about it!  They had so much fun, it was definitely a bucket list moment.  They had caddies and everything - had the whole royal treatment.  We girls hit the spa that day and got pampered - I personally think we got the better end of the deal - check out my view from the gym!  I would get a 2 hour workout everyday if this was my view!

Here's some shots from the course:

We all met up for dinner after our amazing days - happiness all around. 

 The last day, the guys hit the course at the Inn at Spanish Bay and we girls checked out Carmel - then we were onward to Monterey for the night.  Our hotel was great, right on the water, chock full of fluffy little sea otters - sooo precious!

 

 Here's a link to all our shots, if you're ready for overload - then we were onward and upward to Yosemite after that!  Enjoy: