High Views, Narrow Loos, and Gas Price Chicken: Our Reno-to-Yosemite Express

We said goodbye to the Klamath Falls mouse resort and hit the road for a casual four-and-a-half-hour cruise to Reno.

Upon arrival at the WorldMark Reno, we were informed our accessible room wasn’t ready. Because waiting in a lobby is everyone’s favorite road trip activity, we graciously accepted an “upgrade” to a standard two-bedroom condo on the top floor. The view was spectacular, which almost made up for the bathroom architecture.

The toilet was housed in its own private room—and by “room,” I mean a literal closet. The door was so narrow my walker couldn’t fit straight through. My evening routine quickly devolved into a game of physical Tetris, requiring me to shuffle in sideways, perform a multi-point U-turn, and hope for the best. To add insult to injury, the bathtub lacked the jet-propulsion action of our previous stop. Luckily, we travel with our own portable toilet safety bars because we are nothing if not highly adaptable MacGyvers of the accessible travel world. Ultimately, trading the second-floor accessible room for a penthouse view for just one night felt like a temporary win.

The next morning, we launched into what was scheduled to be an eight-hour marathon drive to Vegas, featuring a highly anticipated detour through Yosemite National Park via the Tioga Pass.

First, we made a crucial pit stop at a Sonic in Carson City for breakfast—marking our very first Sonic appearance of the trip, an absolute milestone. From there, we scaled the Sierra Nevadas at 6,000 feet along Highway 395, pausing to admire Mono Lake and pretend we weren’t about to face an absolute logistical reckoning.

We finally hit Yosemite’s Tioga Pass entrance. The climb up to the visitor center was undeniably stunning. We stopped at a gorgeous lake with a bridge that Leesa went to scout out, and we passed herds of eager hikers taking advantage of the trails. Of course, nature’s majesty was perfectly paired with a massive road-widening construction zone as we neared the visitor center, just to keep us grounded.

Leesa marched into the visitor center to get the official lay of the land. She emerged with some excellent math from a Park Ranger: a round trip to see El Capitan, Bridalveil Falls, and Tunnel View would take roughly three hours. Given that we still had a six-hour drive to Vegas ahead of us, we did the completely logical thing: we admitted Yosemite deserved way more respect than a rushed drive-by, promised the trees we’d be back when we actually had time, and promptly turned around.

Our detour south took us through California’s Big Pine Pass on Highway 168. It was a narrow, winding two-lane highway peaking at 7,271 feet.

Now we faced our next crisis. We had previously sworn a blood oath that we would never pay California’s extortionate $6 to $7 per gallon gas prices. However, our Ford Flex’s “miles to empty” gauge was suddenly looking significantly shorter than the Google Maps distance to the next Nevada gas station along our route. Faced with the prospect of being stranded on a mountain peak to save thirty bucks, we swallowed our pride and took a minor detour north to Goldfield, Nevada. Once we reached the safety of the refueling depot, we celebrated fueling up the Flex by fueling up ourselves by eating the sandwiches Leesa had packed. We successfully averted a self-inflicted disaster, saved a fortune on fuel, and finally rolled into the Club Wyndham Desert Blue in Las Vegas around 6:00 PM.

Next up: We hit the Las Vegas Strip, where the BattleBots Fight, the Fish DO Bite, and—thankfully—the bathroom doors are wide enough for a walker.