Yosemite the Beautiful

Back in the day, before Russ and I said "I do" to marriage, we said "I do" to pre-marital counseling. I think this is fairly standard fare -- you get out all the aggression and shit-storms and dysfunctions before marriage so that you can live happily working on all that stuff as long as you both shall live. Counseling wasn't easy, but then again, I guess that's sort of the point. At least, that was our friend and counselor's opinion on the subject. He told us flat out at the beginning of our seven sessions that he was going to do his best to break us up, I think the idea being that if we could survive this marital bootcamp, we'd be more-than-okay in the days to follow. His methods eventually led to me calling him a bastard during one session, something that he still laughs about when we reminisce.

Out the all the valuable things we took away from the experience, one was that if you want to have traditions as a couple, you have to start them. Even when you're both students and often living off $30. "What sorts of traditions?" we asked. "Well, like vacations. If you don't make them a priority, let money and time stand in the way, you'll never get in the habit of being vacationing-types." I think that was around the time when I was still heavily using whatever and that's exactly what I thought: what-ever. Vacations aren't tradition. You want to go somewhere, you go. It was perhaps my psyche slowly shredding evidence that my family's vacations were indeed ritual -- every year, around the same time, we'd jump in the car and head south. Unfortunately, our choices only showed any consistency, any sort of tradition, in their complete awfulness. Someone always got arrested; mobsters threatened us; my sister got carsick; my dad passed out inside Cinderella's castle; and then there was the year that my sister had to sleep inside the cabinets because our room was so small.

So here it is, five years later C.E., and as of the beginning of August, Russ and I had yet to take any sort of vacation together. And forget traditions. We were just trying to get out of L.A. and it's unbearable 102-ness. He had this idea -- we could camp Yosemite and Calaveras Big Tress for under $100. It'd be cheap and fun and we could be outside and come and go as we pleased. No reservations. Just a truck, a tank of gas, and hopes of finding good campsites every night. Which we did. By streams, by people who caught fish and shared them with us, in places with masses of wildflowers, by lots of uber-efficient Germans, at high, chilly places, and among some of the largest trees in the world.

Check out our photos to get an idea of how not-bad this vacation was. In fact, I think I can safely say that I'm even thinking about doing it again next year. Traditional, isn't it?