(click on thumbnail photos to see full-size images)

day 1—
The day started out like any other, with both of us performing various household chores and working on client reports.  (As we're both self-employed, we pretty much work 24/7.)  We also took a trip over to Budget to rent a car for our trip. After packing up and bidding farewell to my step-daughter Layne, as well as the kitties and koi/goldfish, we finally hit the road around dinner time (behind schedule, as per our usual).  Unfortunately, we had about a 5-hour trip ahead of us, so we knew we were in for a late night.

We headed out SR 4 to...I don't quite remember.  Did we take the Byron Highway down to I-205?  Or did we take SR 4 straight through to Stockton, then down I-5 or SR 99 to the Manteca area?

In any case, we eventually ended up on SR 120, which took us through Escalon and Oakdale, and eastward toward Yosemite National Park.  We found ourselves on a really creepy narrow winding road before ultimately hooking up with the Tioga Pass (see map).

We passed through Groveland (which is cute as a button! I wish this leg of our trip had been during daylight so I could've actually seen it), and, as we were already getting kinda sleepy, stopped briefly at a tavern in the middle of nowhere for some coffee-to-go.  We continued on the Tioga Pass all the way through Yosemite, hit US 395 just below Lee Vining, then headed south on 395 to Mammoth Lakes where we had a reservation at the Holiday Inn.

We checked in, entered our room, unloaded our baggage, and promptly passed out from exhaustion.