A few years ago, a friend of mine mentioned that she had a friend who was celebrating her 60th (or something meaningful like that) birthday and whose husband arranged to have a corresponding number of friends to do something with or for his wife. I know I have nowhere near that many number of friends, and so that could never happen to me. Thinking proactively, I thought that I should do 40 things by the time I'm 40. But being more realistic, I thought I'd make it easy and instead plan 4 big trips by the time I'm 40. By a big trip, I was thinking of a trip abroad and for an extended period of time. I think I was 36 when I thought this, so the timing fit.
In 2008, I spent two months in the Philippines before I started my new job. That counted as big trip #1; I started to blog about
that trip, but never quite finished. In 2009, I had two major trips: one to
Southeast Asia (for six weeks) and another to Peru (for two weeks). Well, neither of those were really quite just for me--the trip to Southeast Asia was for work and the one to Peru was my mom's 70th birthday present--but I figured I could count those as at least one trip; that would make the combo big trip #2.
This year, I had thought about going to Australia/New Zealand, but I didn't have anyone to go with me. So, I have a bunch of little trips--all domestic--planned instead. (It is still quite possible that I'll plan an overseas trip at the last minute, though.) So, in honor of my birthday, I decided to plan a trip to Yosemite National Park instead. This is not a trip abroad, but Yosemite is on my life list, so surely this counts as a big trip.
So, this blog is about my birthday trip to Yosemite.