Driving through the Sierra Nevadas

On our recent weekend away we drove through the Sierra Nevada mountains to reach our destination of Bodie, a real life Old West ghost town.

I must admit that I never gave too much thought to the actual drive, just our destination, so I wasn't prepared for the stunning views that lay ahead. I honestly don't know why it never occurred to me that we'd be driving through such amazing scenery. I mean, we were heading through the mountains just south of Lake Tahoe and just north of Yosemite, two of California's most beautiful locations. I guess I was just excited about visiting a real life ghost town and didn't think too much about anything else!

The other thing that I wasn't prepared for was the weather. I mean, it's almost Summer, it'd be clear skies ahead, right? Uh uh! While the sun did come out for us, at one point we found ourselves driving through sleet. And then rain. And then maybe a light sprinkling of snow. Or maybe that was sleet again. Either way, we were a little worried that we wouldn't make it through Sonora Pass high in the mountains - and we didn't have a back up plan. But all is well that ends well, and luckily the weather cleared up allowing us to drive through the pass with no problems.

Along the way we took in the amazing scenery through frosty car windows. Such breathtaking scenery. Mountains and valleys. Waterfalls and steep cliffs. Pine trees and boulders. Snow, snow and more snow. It was that last one that got the kids excited. Having never lived somewhere that gets snow, it's still such a huge novelty for the kids. Ok, and for Kim and I too. When we started seeing snow on the sides of the road the kids finally looked up from Minecraft and Frozen on their iGadgets and paid attention to the scenery outside the car.

When we reached Donnell Vista we pulled over and went for a walk to the lookout to take in the views. By this point the sleet/snow/rain had cleared leaving everything crisp and fresh. It was fairly cold but as you can see from the photos, we're pretty tough and coped just fine in t-shirts! Well, apart from Mathilde. She wasn't too happy about the cold weather and just wanted to be cuddled. Every attempt to put her down resulted in tears, which I just had to photograph as she looked so damn cute in her AlbaBaby overalls! (Thanks Nina for that gorgeous outfit).

The views from Donnell Vista were amazing. There is a dam in a valley at the bottom with waterfalls running into it. The clouds were low at certain points and nestled amongst the trees which looked oh so atmospheric.

While Mathilde clung to me, Ava and Lola ran around, climbed on huge rocks and acted like goofballs in front of the camera.

After we left Donnell Vista we continued straight onto Bridgeport where we spent the night. There were more spectacular views to be seen along the way but it was starting to get late and we were keen to get some dinner so we didn't stop again.

Stay tuned for our visit to the ghost town of Bodie.