City Girl goes Outdoors: Our Trip to Yosemite

by Unknown - July 19, 2017

I am, without a doubt, a city girl. Born and raised in the city, the urban jungle is all I've grown up knowing. I am familiar with road construction noises and how they can serve as alarms in the morning, traffic congestion and how I have to schedule my day around the time I'll be spending stuck in it, cellular data and how it's present in almost all places I visit, and Wi-Fi, however slow, exists nonetheless.

I find comfort in the city. It's familiar and is home. I like stepping on solid ground- the gray asphalt, the white and newly cemented pathways, or the striped crosswalks. Car horns, firetruck and ambulance sirens, and the sound of a overpopulated city are all oddly comforting. The familiarity makes me feel safe.

So when I was promised a 3-day stay in Yosemite, the first thing I felt was worry, if not terror. There's always something about being on soil and grass that makes me uneasy. Spending nights in a small enclosed area with the only thing protecting me from the outdoors is a thin layer of cloth that makes up the tent. Being so far away from the city bothered me to no extent. Well, of course a part of me was also excited. I knew little about Yosemite (like how to pronounce it- I researched and learned it was said "yoh-sem-it-ee" before my dad could fool and convince me otherwise). But I knew it had to do with hiking and that excited me because (1) I like moving around, and (2) I like taking pictures of great views.

The six-hour road trip from Palmdale wasn't the best. I had to force myself to sleep so I didn't have to worry about my motion sickness. The drive up the mountains to the tourist viewpoints consisted of a tablet of Dramamine, pep talks to myself, and several reminders not to throw up. It didn't help that my cousin who was driving the car was zooming through all the zigzag roads on the side of the mountain.

Tip: Don't do that. The view is nice on the way to the top and there's also a speed limit. You might want to take those into consideration before hitting that gas pedal hard.

After the roadtrip that felt like forever, we finally made it to the a few tourist spots where we got to take pictures of the view. I can't even begin to describe how amazing it looked, so I'm gonna let the photos speak for themselves.

Seriously, don't they look like they're taken straight out of a postcard?! Everything was so beautiful, I almost forgot about my irrational fear of prolonged exposure to the outdoors.

Almost.

Of course, while looking around and appreciating the view, at the back of my head was a voice that reminded me non-stop that I was going to spend a few nights here. So close to the outdoors. Far from civilization. I. Am. Not. Made. For. This.

But ok, thank goodness the words "Airbnb" , "paid for", "WiFi", and "it's a house" were uttered right before I went on full-panic mode. I'm thankful for my aunts and uncles who decided to rent this super cool Airbnb which I don't have photos of but, to give you guys an idea, comfortably housed 19 of us, allowed us to make smores out on the terrace, gave us WiFi, and was equipped with a fully functional kitchen. I'm not so thankful for my dad's jokey nature and the way he led me to believe that we were in fact going to be sleeping in tents.

So yes, this city girl made it through the trip and survived the outdoors (mostly because there was an Airbnb to come home to and hot water for bathing). This girl also survived the zigzag roads with a little help from Dramamine and her very own comforting words. This girl isn't sure about how she's going to end this post so she'll just stop typing and leave a few more pictures here.