Day 1 of my Road Trip after AmeriCamp!

Day One

After some tearful goodbyes (not from me apparently I’m cold hearted) Jenna and I headed off to the airport to pick up our car we had reserved from Alamo. I was super nervous about driving in America, but, after discovering that I shouldn’t use my left foot on the clutch because it was super heavy and caused an emergency stop every time I wanted to brake it turned out it was actually super simple. So off to the University we headed to pick everybody up. That is when disaster struck.

The car we had ordered was supposed to fit 5 people and 4 cases (I figured we then had extra room to squeeze another case and some bags..) but nope, 3 cases were all we could get in to the boot. After a lot of tetris we decided we were going to have to bite the bullet and just head back to the airport to try and get a different car. Luckily, they gave us an SUV upgrade for freeeeeee, yeyyyyy! So off we drove in a sexy BMW X3. (Clearly stole the photo from Antonia’s snapchat).

For years I’ve really wanted to go to Yosemite – it reminds me of the Parent Trap so much even though I’m not even sure whether it was supposed to be there or not. The plan was to make it to Yosemite for around 2-ish and do a 3-5hour hike before heading out to the hotel for the night. However, after the drama of the car swap and the need to stop for food we were rather delayed, oh we also stopped for lots of photo opportunities too. We ended up getting to Yosemite around 3.30pm which clearly wasn’t enough time for a hike that could potentially take up to 5 hours. So after paying our entry fee we happened across a train for a waterfall which sounded perfect.

The trail was literally only 10mins long and because it’s Summer there was very little waterfall, the obvious solution of climbing up the rocks to find the waterfall. It was pretty slippy but I was soooo determined to see some water that we battled up. And I am so glad that we did because it was genuinely beautiful once you got up. I’m such a sucker for a pretty view, potentially the only thing that could have improved how I felt right then was a handsome guy and some fairy lights but hey ho it is what it is! I had such a laugh climbing up with Antonia it took me a while to realise that Alex was climbing up in a minidress, heels and her handbag! Haha! Literally one of a kind, I must say I was pretty impressed she managed it because she did get right to the top!

 Although we didn’t spend a huge amount of time in Yosemite it felt like we had accomplished something whilst we were there so we scrambled back in to the car and headed off to our hotel for the night in Mammoth Lakes called the Sierra Nevada Lodge. Luckily, I got on to the right road and managed by myself as I had no signal for Sat Nav and all the girls were asleep so couldn’t read the directions I had printed off. Haha, luck was on our side.

What can I say? The hotel did it’s job, it provided us with some beds for the night. That is to say, there was no a/c, the bar was super expensive and there was a random microwave on the floor in the room, but to be fair all we needed was somewhere to lay our head as they say. For dinner though we did avoid the expensive hotel bar and headed across the road to Roberto’s Cafe for some Mexican (which considering it was Taco Tuesday made me super happy). Wow, the service was bad. The waitress we had literally never uttered a single polite word to us the whole time we were there, my coke had more ice in it than liquid and at one point we were told ‘I’m not your server you’ll have to wait.’ I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced anything like it, the waitress then even had the nerve to call us back in to the restaurant to complain we hadn’t given her a big enough tip! Jeez! The food was pretty good though to be fair…

An early night was on the cards for me as I pretty much slept instantly once I was in my bed. In my opinion a great first day of road tripping.

-Samantha Patterson