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Yosemite is an incredibly special place. But you don’t need to hear that from me. My visits to Yosemite throughout the years hold some really awesome memories, all of them very different from one another. Some tales include hiking down from Glacier Point in the dark with a baby and a blind person, hiking 15 miles during the day and then night climbing in Tuolumne until 2 in the morning, dodging a boulder that had just fallen in the middle of the road (kinda ironic, being ran over by one several years later), building my first fire in the rain, watching Curry Village employees chase a ringtail cat around the lodge, and swimming in Tenaya lake in nothin’ but my underwear. Just to name a few. This particular trip is important to me because it was my first solo camping trip. Before I give myself too much credit… it was only one night. But it certainly was an opportunity to step out of my comfort zone and get to know myself better. I spent the better part of the day hiking around the interconnecting trails on the south side of the valley, and interacting with people much more than I had thought. I swear almost every person I passed asked me for directions. I must have been walking with an air of all-knowing trail knowledge about me. The second part of this trip was spent in the company of my best friend and her family, catching up from months of not seeing each other, and taking in a fresh breath of nature.