One of the best weekends/weeks...

As most employees know, last Monday was a holiday celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. Some school districts take advantage of this holiday and allow their staff and students to have a three day weekend (and hence only a four day week). (Side note: I've had three 4-day weeks in a row now. Monday Jan. 2 was a holiday since Jan. 1 was on a Sunday. Monday Jan. 9 I was sick and took a day off, and Monday Jan 16 was MLK day. I'm starting to like this situation! Unfortunately this will not last). Since Grant and I were moving over Christmas break, we didn't get a chance to go away like we had intended. We're both the type of people that need to see the seasons change throughout the year or we go crazy with seasonal depression. So for our long weekend we decided to head up to Yosemite for some great scenery and snow play. In the bay area, traffic is always bad. Most people, if they're going away for the weekend, leave on Friday night. So we decided to not get stuck in traffic and not have our first experience this year driving in the snow be at night by leaving at 7am Saturday morning. Grant did an awesome job packing and preparing so that we actually did get out of the garage by 7:12am. I was impressed. Saturday: Drive to Yosemite, enter park around 11am at the El Portal , put tire chains on and gentle drive down into the valley to see the typical touristy Yosemite sights. Late afternoon we drove up to Badger Pass to do a quick mile of cross country skiing to remind our bodies that we did know how to ski at one point. Then we drove out of the park to our hostel, the Yosemite Bug. Slept well. Sunday: Breakfast, then out by 9am to drive into the park for a full day of skiing. This is where my husband is the best. I always bug him about wanting to take to much with us but this time I was glad he packed the backpack. We skied about 4 miles to this awesome overlook where you can see El Capitain, Half Dome and other Yosemite sites. To fully enjoy the view, we took out a mat to sit on, set up the camp stove and proceeded to make hot chocolate to warm us up. Then Grant made us sandwiches-- the best-- start with a sour dough roll, add slices of tomato, cucumber, avocado, alfalfa sprouts, and some provolone cheese. Yummy. We skied out by a different trail, made it back to the car and then back to the hostel for another good night of sleep. Monday: got up a bit earlier, got all packed and left the hostel by 8am. Drove through the park one more time and ventured out on our skis to see some sequoias. We saw one sequoia that had been in a fire that killed it, then way back, like 100 years ago, some guys chiseled out a tunnel so that wagons could go through it (and then very small cars). And then the long drive home. I'm so glad we got to see the snow again.