Wednesday May 18th

I didn't sleep much in anticipation of the early start, and I woke-up ahead of the alarm. After a quick cold shower, I  gathered my belongings, checked out of the hostel, and hopped into my pre-booked taxi. Th hotel was only five minutes away, and as the taxi pulled up the valet asked, 'Trek America?' When I nodded yes, he directed me into the hotel lobby, where I was one of the first of the group to arrive.

Gradually everyone drifted in and our tour leader, Cassie, came to greet us. We spent  an our filling in paperwork and learning about the two weeks ahead, before finally getting on the road in our 15 seat van (and trailer). There was 10 of us in total (plus 2 Danish girls who had missed the start), comprising of 2 Aussie couples, 2 Aussie singles, 2 English girls, a South Korean girl and an Italian guy. I sat in the front seat to help Cassie navigate troough the narrow San Francisco streets, as our first stop was the Golden Gate Bridge.

We were dropped off at one end of the bridge and had an hour to walk across the bridge, stopping to take lots of photos along the way. Up close, the bridge is almost brown (apparently the official colour is 'international orange'). You could also see Alcatraz from the bridge - at least I can now say I've seen it!

After hopping back on the bus, we headed west out of San Francisco, stopping at ... Walmart! The two English girls, Tamsyn and Lucy, had never been to a Walmart before, so they were in their element! We spent an hour there - I purchased a pair of thongs for the shower, a Hannah Montana blanket for the cold, and some snacks. As we weren't eating lunch for another hour, we also stopped in at McDonalds for a snack - can't get much more American than that!

Our next stop was at 3pm for our 'lunch'. We spread out the lunch groceries from the van and had salad sandwiches and chip, and then headed fo a walk. We'd actually stopped at a historic town from the gold-rush era, featuring several old mill buildings and the longest covered bridge in America.

Another hour in the car and we finally made it to Yosemite National Park. The plan had been to do a short hike to reach the sequoias (the massive, thousand year old trees), but unfortunately the path was covered in snow! Come on - I've just left the snow - and isn't is supposed to be May? We had a snowball fight instead, and Brett even juggled snowballs for our entertainment, before heading to the campground.

The campground was about half an hour out of the main par, and was quite muddy (the rubber thongs came in handy!) We had a lesson putting up our tents, and were then left to our devices to actually put our own tents up (in the dark!)

It was well after 9 by the time dinner was started, and we all bonded over spaghetti by the campfire that the boys had gotten started (I can`t wait to experience the American tradition of s`mores!) Cassie continued to talk to us about plans for the next  few days before we finally made it into our tents at 11:30pm - freezing and exhausted!