Yosemite has been in my bucket list for a pretty long time. My niece, Nazia, is in love with Yosemite. She’s the one who got me infected with this amazing virus. Had I not planned for going there I would have regretted for missing such a wonderful beauty.
Wanting to go to Yosemite was nothing. But the planning and making things happen was really a challenge for me. I don’t live in the USA, I don’t drive and I can’t go there alone, all by myself. So, when I got to know that I was selected (heaven bless Local Guides) I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to finally make my dream of visiting Yosemite come true. I posted on Connect if anybody wanted to visit Yosemite. I so wished I could go there for camping, but thinking about the time, logistic support and expense, I thought it would be good to go there just for a day, for now. I can always go back there on my next visit. (I know I have to. I am going to fall in love in there).
Visiting Yosemite for a day is like reading the back-cover of a novel. You get to know the gist of the massive beauty. I will deal with that, for now. And I am coming back there next year anyway. 
Andras was the first one to respond to my offer. Thanks to him. We decided on renting a car from SF and stay in a hostel/ hotel/ airbnb house or anything for a night and come back to the city the next day. But we needed more persons to share the expenses for renting the car and gas. Besides, who doesn’t know that a road trip is enjoyed the best when the group is fairly big. Like they always say, the more the merrier.
@KarenVChin shared her knowledge on renting cars, expected gas consumption and cost, SF traffic on a weekday, the route to Yosemite and a lot of other things. She is a perfect local Local Guides. Had she was not there or not proactively communicated with me, I would probably never be able to organize such a wonderful trip. Thanks a million, Karen. You are a sweetheart! I owe you a drink. Please remind me that next time.
Looking at the response in Connect I started feeling excited. A car can fit maximum 5 persons, but the response is increasing. We already got confirmation from more than 8 persons by then. Which means we need to rent 2 cars and we have only one driver (Andras) who had experience of driving on the USA roads. I was feeling nervous. Where will I get a second driver from? One fine morning I received a mail from Rohitha. He said he was willing to join us and he doesn’t mind driving. That was just perfect icing on the cake for me.
The following few days went by just looking at the response rate. Some people were interested to go, but was not sure about their visa, some were still struggling with the travel arrangements, some could not make up their mind about their stay in SF whereas some were concerned about money (I fall under the last group. But again, thanks to Karen, she helped me a lot to make a solid budget for the tour).
Joseph suggested this amazing airbnb house in Oakhurst, that could accommodate 12 persons. But we were 14. So I texted Joshua, the owner of the house, asking if we could stay. All he said was, he doesn’t have any problem, but we have to suit ourselves squeezing in. And we surely did.
Rohitha was teasing me looking at the response rate that I might have to hire a school bus finally for the group. I would definitely give it a thought, ONLY, if any of the drivers had the license to drive such huge vehicles. But well, for now we were happy with these 2 mini (or should I say giant) vans, that could easily fit 14 passengers (yes, finally the group size was 14, including 1 toddler of 18 months) and all our luggages. Amazing, isn’t it?
Team Yosemite (thank you Sampson, for the innovative name) was formed with 14 people. 2 from Bangladesh, 1 from Brasil (Brazil), 1 from Hungary, 3 (actually 2.5) from Kazakhstan, 1 from Tanzania, 1 from Sri Lanka, 1 from UAE, 1 from Toronto, 1 from Hong Kong, 1 from Maldives and 1 from UK.
WOW! I have just realized that it was a group of not just 14 members, but also from representatives of 11 countries and 5 continents! What an amazing group it was! We just needed representatives from Australia and Antarctica. If @Lachlan_M_Wells went to Yosemite with us, instead of going earlier, we would have 1 Australian with us too. Our bad. 
We started exchanging group mails (and the chain mail was over 100) to share the planning and other details about the tour. A whatsapp group was created for real-time conversation. I kept on calling people (from different time zones) for instant updates. Man, those were really tiring yet exciting moments! And I had to keep in mind the time differences as well. So apparently I forgot my own time zone. That was hilarious.
8 October 2017: Finally the date came when we eventually would meet all 14 of us in person. I was so very excited!
Some of us had already reached SF on 7th. Andras and Badruddeen took delivery of the car (SF002) and we all met at Pier Market restaurant, for Pre-Summit Dinner Meet Up. I already met Badru, Andras, Maria, Mahabub, Anuradha by then. But meeting Rohitha, Sampson, Joe, Muhannad, Tim, Ainur and her husband Daniyer was indeed wonderful. And I was so glad that @JulienH and @JosephZhan (who were also supposed to join us but had to cancel at the last minute for their personal problems), @AlejandraMaria , @AnnaBcn , @CaduF , @IrenaS (who else did I miss?) also joined us for dinner. It was indeed a great meet up.
9 October 2017: As Rohitha suggested (and Karen insisted the same too), we started our journey at 4AM. Since it was just the first day of the week, we suspected there would be crazy traffic, so the idea was to leave the Bay area before 5AM. Both the giant vans SF001 and SF002 (I know Andras was in love with his GMC Yukon XL 2017 van, but not sure how did Rohitha liked his one though) were on the freeway long before the sunrise.
On our way, we had our breakfast with some pastries and buns. Those cold coffees were great to keep our driver awake. Thanks to Tim. It was his idea.
We reached Yosemite before noon. I won’t talk about the beauty of the massive park. For that you have to see these amazing photos. But all I can say is, one day was not enough even for the gist of the huge novel.
We did some short trekking, the inevitable photo shoots, long walks, sitting by the falls, spending some relaxed time and what not. When we finally reached our temporary nest in Oakhurst, it was past nine.
What will I say about this wonderful house? It had all the facilities that a house should have in the middle of the jungle. And on top of that, the host kept food for us in the kitchen. There were cookies, chocolates, nuts, buns and even organic milk in the fridge. And we found coffee in the kitchen too. Our idea was to cook our dinner at that house. So even though it was quite late, we started preparing our food. The menu was as simple as pilaf rice, egg curry and salad. Mahabub brought some amazing beef (we call it jhuri gosh) from qurbani eid and my personal favorite, Hilsa Fry, from Dhaka. Thankfully none of the food got spoiled. Dinner was served at 12 (midnight) and finally we went to sleep at 1ish.
10 October: The next morning was a little relaxed for us. SF001 started quite early morning as Rohitha needed to give back the car by 12noon. But we, the passengers of SF002 started a little late, after cleaning the house. The morning in Oakhurst was amazing. We even saw deer in the backyard. There were some birds as well, but we could not figure out what birds were those. By 10AM we were on the highway. Another amazing journey to the Bay City. Lunch was on the way.
At around 3PM, we reached Hyatt Centric. And that was the end of an amazing tour.
It was sad to say goodbye to our amazing car. But we had no choice. Andras was really upset about the hunk. So upset that he almost cried. So I had to promise him that one day, when I will be a billionaire, I will buy him a car like that on his birthday. He was happy. Maria and Badru were happy too, when they learned that the same gifts will be there for them as well. Ainur and her family was happy because they had a wonderful time in the woods. Mahabub was happy to check Yosemite in his bucket list. And I was the happiest because I just met some wonderful souls and made an amazing family out of my family.
@ErmesT , next time I want to see you in my group, for camping. And we hope to see @LucioV in the group as well.
We are going to hear many more stories from other attendees… Don’t forget to check out the index here for all those wonderful stories.
