I was about 13 years old the first time I remember visiting Yosemite. I know I had been earlier in my life, but
this trip was The One.
My family set out in our old Suburban and headed north up the 5 in the middle of summer with no air
conditioning. To this day I’ll occasionally turn off the air and roll the windows down just so my kids can have
a taste of my youth with the wind roaring in their ears and their hair whipping across their faces. They
couldn’t imagine driving this way for a whole five hour trip. Along with all of our camping gear, we lugged
bikes all the way from the Los Angeles area just to be able to ride around the valley.
For the first time, I was allowed to explore the valley alone on my bike. I spent hours pedaling the paths,
listening to the Smiths on my Walkman, and enjoying the freedom that comes with flying down an open
bike trail. I will never forget the energizing sensation of riding through the cool shady cover of trees and
then bursting into a wide open meadow with the towering granite walls and the deep blue sky above.
Everything, including me, felt big and small at the same time. That sense of wonder and awe has been
something that I feel every time I’ve visited Yosemite since.
A decade or so later, I was lucky enough to spend some time in Europe in my early 20s. I felt a similar
sense of amazement every time I looked up. On one particular afternoon, I felt it in a way that brought me
right back to that day on my bike in Yosemite. Walking down a dark narrow street in Florence, I stumbled
into a wide open piazza. Even though I was a whole continent away, I had the same feeling of wonder
wash over me and I was taken right back to that special moment in Yosemite. These two times and places
are forever linked in my mind.
This spring, I was back at Yosemite almost 30 years later, once again riding a bike through the Valley. Now
in my mid 40s with a 13-year-old of my own, I’m not flying down the path like I used to, but I did feel the
same wonder and awe that I did all those decades ago when I burst into the open space of a meadow
under the blue sky.