How a Trip to Yosemite National Park Salvaged a Pandemic Summer
Twenty-twenty was the year that I truly learned to take Lao Tzu’s philosophy, which I am loosely translating to mean, “be like water, and go with the flow,” to heart.
Everything I “knew” about my world, and all my plans for the year, were suddenly upended by a virus that seemingly came out of nowhere and then was everywhere all at once.
As a high school teacher, my students and I were instantly rocketed into another dimension of online learning in the spring of 2020. We Zoomed and Google Doc’ed and Nearpodded our way to the end of the year, in a digital daze.
My own, and only, child was slated to graduate from high school in 2020. How I longed to see my son graduate on stage, and to savor the results of years of hard work (for both of us, let’s be honest)! I had planned to take him on his first trip to Hawaii to celebrate, and we were both excited to explore tropical islands and waters together.
I am fortunate my son still enjoys spending time with me. I think that can be attributed to all the time I have spent with him, especially as a single parent. I have taken him camping on the beach in Santa Barbara, and on the Kern River. When he was assigned to research Sequoia National Park in sixth grade, I took him there for spring break to see its breathtaking beauty in person. We have hiked locally since he was young enough to carry water.
But the losses at the end of the 2020 school year were crushing, even though I knew we were so lucky to have each other, and to still be healthy and safe.
There was no prom. No Grad Nite at Disneyland. No in-person graduation. No trip to Hawaii. The cancellations came one at a time, like sad dominoes falling before us.
I was extremely thankful for the drive-through graduation my son’s school organized, however, and I realized we could adjust and still find meaningful ways to celebrate.
I pondered how to salvage our graduation trip — where could we go within driving distance, safely, during a pandemic? And I thought of Yosemite National Park, and how much I have always loved visiting there.
When I first proposed Yosemite, the disappointment was clear in my son’s voice as he said a half-hearted “maybe.” But then I told him how this national park was baked into our family traditions.
My grandparents honeymooned in Yosemite in 1935 (I have black and white photos of them feeding deer, and close-up shots of bears). After having a family, they often took my mother and her sister to Yosemite to camp and explore. Before my mother passed away in 2019, she gave me a silver ring she got as a souvenir in Yosemite as a child.
My own parents took our family camping in Yosemite when I was 15, and I still remember listening to Journey’s new cassette tape “Escape” on my boom box, while marveling at the spectacular scenery around me. (I know I’ve just dated myself.)
Sean soon agreed to go, and at 17 and 53, respectively, we drove up to Yosemite from Ventura County in July of 2020. We stayed at the Yosemite View Lodge just outside the park, and hiked or biked every day for nearly a week. We fell in love with the park together.
I remembered when Sean was little, and I had to prod him along on the trails. Now the tables had turned. Sean waited for me at the top of Yosemite Falls, while I slowly made my way up nearly 5,000 feet of elevation on a hot summer day in July. The roundtrip hike was about 10 miles, and took us most of the day, but the views were spectacular and the water at the summit invigorated us.
The next day, we rented bicycles and pedaled around Yosemite Valley, stopping to get a boxed lunch at the beautiful and historic Ahwahnee Hotel. The day after that, we hiked the Mist Trail, completing an 11-mile loop resplendent with stunning waterfalls and rainbows.
One night, we rode the historic Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine railroad, eating barbecue and listening to live music at the station, and then stopping along the route for an old-fashioned campfire singalong. On the way back, in the dark, we parked at the tunnel vista point in the park and saw more stars in the sky than either of us had ever seen, along with a glimpse of the comet Neowise.
My son is now at college in Santa Cruz, and has already met friends who share his love of the outdoors. He went backpacking in Joshua Tree National Park over his recent spring break, so I know that his love of national parks will only grow.
I’m grateful that this pandemic gave us an opportunity to create new memories together, while also honoring those of the past.
