If I could do it all over again, the advice I would give my younger self as a parent would have been to stretch our family budget, just a little more, and find a way to take the family on a few more adventures.
Having just returned from an amazing nine-day trip out west to San Francisco, Yosemite National Park and Lake Tahoe with our adult children, the memories that we created were priceless. Our time together on this adventure really struck a chord with me about priorities. Perhaps you can relate.
I’d like to think that as a family, we have lived a pretty balanced life, and we faced all the usual daily challenges that most families face with dignity and grace. Well, most of the time! I must confess, however, that being disciplined savers over the years with our goal of retiring early may have gotten in the way of taking some longer adventurous trips with the family. But as we have reached our Medicare years, it reminded me that we only have so much time with our family and we had better start saying yes more often.
Don’t get me wrong, we have been blessed to go to some amazing places and travel more than some families ever get to do. As a family we’ve been to our fair share of fun trips including Penn State football bowl games, NFL and NHL games and PGA Golf events. We’ve done many beach and skiing trips, been on hot air balloon rides, gone parasailing, traveled to Italy, visited Civil War Historical sights (perhaps to the chagrin of some family members), made the pilgrimage to Disney and Universal Studios and more. Those memories are priceless.
However, one of our favorite family adventures was to simply travel to the small town of Tidioute, Pa., with extended members of my wife’s family to her parents’ camp, affectionately known as BackAchers. No fancy lodge, no five star restaurants, no amusement parks. Just the family going on hikes, catching crayfish in the “crick,” floating on a raft in the pond, playing games at the kitchen table and roasting marshmallows by the firepit at night. The best rides were in the back of the small wagon hooked up to the John Deere riding mower with Grandpa Smitty as the driver or canoeing down the Allegheny River all the way to West Hickory. Our kids and their cousins cherish those memories, and an unfortunate reality to them all growing up and having careers is that as an extended family we no longer get to share those special moments in the Allegheny Forest.
Perhaps our trip out west was a chance to recapture the spirit of BackAchers albeit on a much grander scale. The adventure began with everyone flying in to meet in San Francisco. My wife and I flew from Savannah International airport and our kids from Reagan National and Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport respectively. We spent the first day exploring San Francisco visiting all the well-known sites including my personal favorite, Land’s End Park.
The next day started with a 5-hour drive over to Yosemite National Park’s Tuolumne Meadows area, where we would spend the first few days in cabin tents. The drive through the west end of Yosemite to Tuolumne was spectacular. It’s kind of hard to say we were “roughing it” with the cabin tents that had wood stoves and came with already cut wood. There was a main office area with snacks and cold drinks, and it had a dining room, and even a place to charge your electronic devices, although there was no signal to receive any messages. We had a nice family dinner at the dining hall and chatted up some of the staff and other “campers” trying to learn all the little secrets.
Monday morning was the toughest hike of the trip, to Clouds Rest and its view of Yosemite Valley. It was a 15-mile hike that covered a 2,600-foot elevation change (from 7,400’ to over 10,000’). Keep in mind that our home in South Carolina is a whopping 25 feet above sea level. No amount of spinning class and Stairmaster workouts was going to prep us for the elevation challenge, but nonetheless, my wife and I were raring to go. Or so we thought. Just for comparison, State College has an elevation of 1,148 feet above sea level and all those tough hikes up Mount Nittany, just 2,077 feet. We were in rarified air!
Not a half a mile into leaving the trailhead at Tenaya Lake I blew a tire on my old hiking boots as the sole of my right boot was actually flopping around about half way from my heel to mid foot. My oldest son came to the rescue with adhesive tape that actually lasted until 1/2 way back down when it needed a second wrapping. My wife and I had to stop frequently to catch our breath. Sweating and huffing and puffing I asked the kids, how far have we gone so far. “One mile,” one of them shouted. Great, only 6.4 miles left to reach Clouds Rest, not to mention coming back down.
On my way up I kept my mind off my shortness of breath by silently wording scripture and praying and singing some of my favorite songs. Not out loud of course because I was respectful of the others and didn’t want to risk causing a rock slide given my rather annoying raspy voice.
I’m not going to sugarcoat it, folks: That hike was hard. I am especially proud that my wife made it as well. Having the kids there to patiently wait, while my wife and I repeatedly stopped to catch our breath on the ascent and to assist us on the equally challenging descent, was priceless. Even amidst the pain that came along with the hike, it didn’t hurt as much because we were with our kids.
Hike No. 2 was much more to our liking as we did the Mirror Lake trail that was pretty flat as Yosemite trails go, but it was still hard coming on the heels of the Clouds Rest challenge. We saw some wildlife and learned more about the area. It gave us a chance to chat more with the kids since we weren’t gasping for air every step.
After two days of glamping, we drove to the Ahwahnee Lodge, which was a whole different level of lodging. It was a beautiful rustic building that had a Grand Hall and a massive dining room, and the rooms we stayed in were about as far removed from the cabin tents as imaginable. Heidi even spotted Kirk Cameron and his wife, fellow “Growing Pains” star Chelsea Noble. Dinners at the bar were sufficient as we were a bit underdressed for the main dining area, and the bar was way more laid back.
On a visit to Curry Village Mountain Shop I figured I’d find a reasonable pair of hiking shoes or boots on sale. It was the end of the season after all, so you think there would be sales. In fact, there were sales, except all the shoes on sale were out of my size. So, I punted and figured I’d get by with my Skechers. Next hike I realized that wasn’t going to work and my very wise son Jonathon advised me to splurge on a good pair of hiking shoes. “Dad,” he said with a smirk, “$160 now or $20,000 for a knee replacement.”
I had asked my Sun City neighbor Troy Willard, who had visited Yosemite last year, what his favorite part was and he said Glacier Point. While we passed on making the daylong hike up to the Point, we decided to make the hourlong drive up to the lookout at the very top. Wow, am I glad we did! It was one of the highlights of the trip for me. It put the sheer size and scope of the Yosemite Valley into perspective. The view of Half Dome and the Yosemite Valley Village from Glacier Point will rank among the greatest outdoor sites I have seen in person.
While we passed on the hikes up several of the major attractions, we did spend time hanging out at Tenaya Lake, at the base of Bridalveil Falls and El Capitan, which was even more intimidating in person. We joked about an El Capitan hike but chose survival over the challenge. We even spotted two climbers about a third of the way up the western face of the mountain. I mean, who does that for fun? I’m a big “Star Trek” fan and I remember a scene in “Star Trek V: The FInal Frontier” where Captain Kirk is mountaineering up the face of El Capitan wearing a shirt that said, “Go climb a rock.” You bet I found one at the gift shop!
I’m glad we took the time to hike over to see the Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls even though there was a mere trickle of water compared to the force that occurs during the early summer snow melt. We finished our time in Yosemite with a hike in the Tuolumne Grove of Giant Sequoias. It was not as taxing, but still it was 5 miles and a 500-foot change in elevation.
So off we went through Tioga Pass for the third leg in our journey to Lake Tahoe. It was breathtaking in a completely different way than Yosemite. Oh, and the VRBO home that we stayed in at Carnelian Bay had a majestic view of the lake with a sunrise that is burned into my memory forever. Lake Tahoe had much more of a traditional vacation feel as we went boating, hung out at the house, played games, sat in the hot tub, watched college football and did a puzzle. But my boys and I had one more hike left in us the next day.
That five-hour hike with my sons up to Maggie’s Peak definitely stretched me to the limits, but I wasn’t missing it for anything. Reaching the peak provided one last incredible view, and photo op, of an adventure we will not soon forget. On our way back down, we saw the Lake Tahoe Junior Hockey team hiking up as part of their training camp team building. It just made me smile about my days as a hockey coach. We had a final breakfast the next morning at the Reno-Tahoe airport, and we went our separate ways with visions we won’t soon forget.
These types of family adventures create lifetime memories, and I will tell you that the hike up to Clouds Rest with our kids was the hardest part, but it was worth it. There was a real camaraderie with everyone working together and a sense of accomplishment that, at our age, my wife and I could still do it.
It was, in a word, priceless.
