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Brittany L. Bergman

Savoring motherhood, building marriage, and living simply

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The Mountains Will Wreck Your Best-Laid Plans

Apr 30 35 Comments

This is part 5 of a TBT Travel Series: A Taste of California. Check out these posts on why I picked California, how I saved money on travel, the magic of hiking in Malibu, why you shouldn’t miss the Getty Villa, and the sacredness of friendship.

You know what they say about the best-laid plans, right? Well, I’m a master of creating no-wiggle-room, down-to-the-minute, grand plans. And sometimes it feels like Dan and God are in cahoots to subvert my brilliance. Sometimes these are big plans—the timing of our engagement or deciding when to have kids—and sometimes they’re small plans—exploring off the trail or taking a different road.

We left LA mid-morning on a Thursday and made our way north and inland toward Yosemite National Park. We anticipated the trip would take us about 6 hours, giving us a couple hours to explore the park that afternoon. We ended up on a 10-hour adventure because of a car accident (not Dan’s doing) and a decision to take the scenic route (Dan’s doing).

Earlier in the week, when we were stuck in the legendary LA traffic, we were rear-ended. Initially we thought the rental car would be okay, and but later I insisted that we exchange it at the Burbank airport on our way out of town. Dan thought we should just keep driving, but I didn’t feel great about our low-hanging back bumper. I was terrified that it would start to scrape the ground and cause sparks, and then the car would catch on fire and we’d both die in flames out in the wilderness. In addition to my planning abilities, I am gifted at playing out worst-case scenarios, and this gift makes me a real treat to travel with / live with / be married to. Dan is a richly blessed man.

We got lost a few times during our drive, and the sun was just starting to set as we reached the southern entrance to Yosemite.

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Even though we wouldn’t have time to hike that evening as we’d hoped, Dan suggested that we drive through the park and come out the northwest entrance and continue on to our hotel.

Great idea! I readily agreed, thinking it might add an extra 30 or so minutes to our drive time. I had no concept of how big Yosemite is and how winding the roads would be, and as a result, how long it would really take us to get all the way down to the valley and then back out the other side.

So we began our descent into Yosemite Valley—Dan was driving, of course, because if I’d been in charge of navigating those roads, we would have crawled along at 15 miles per hour so that by the time we arrived, we might as well have slept in our car at the bottom of the valley. Instead, I white-knuckled the sides of my seat and tried to look straight ahead as we zigzagged our way down the switchback roads, whipped around sharp curves, and nearly brushed against the guardrails and oncoming cars.

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(Note: I’m exaggerating. Dan drove a safe 30 miles per hour and took great care around curves. But when you’re afraid of heights and narrow roads and falling to your death, anything over 15 mph feels purely RECKLESS.)

It took us nearly two hours to get to the bottom of Yosemite Valley. By the time we reached it at 7:00, everything was shut down for the night. We had no choice but to head right back out the other way, on toward our hotel and—we desperately hoped—food. And this leg of the trip, joy of all joys, took place in the dark.

We finally arrived at our hotel around 8:30 that night. We ordered greasy French dip sandwiches and fries from the diner next door, snuggled into bed, and watched a terrible made-for-TV movie until we fell asleep.

My frustration had grown and grown over the course of the day, with all the setbacks and time delays and my own completely absurd gap in understanding of just how expansive Creation is.

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But as is often the case, whenever I look back on that day—which definitely derailed from my perfectly calculated timeline—it becomes a sweeter memory over time. We took unexpected detours that led us on new adventures, to new heights, to new sights. I got my first taste of true splendor—Creation like I had never seen it before. Several times, we got out of the car just to stand near the edge of a cliff and gaze out over the valley. Dan pointed out El Capitan and Half Dome and Yosemite Falls.

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We weren’t feeling pressured to do more and hike the trails and see all the things—there would be time for that tomorrow. For that day, we were free to drive, stop, gaze, admire, repeat; no striving necessary. We dreamed of seeing these far-off sights the next day, experiencing the reality of the already-and-not-yet.

It was just what we needed that day. Thank God He doesn’t let me call the shots.

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Are you like me, with a death grip on your precious plans? I’d love to know about a time when you learned to release control and how you’re growing here. I need all the help I can get!

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Filed Under: Travel Tagged With: adventure, California, Creation, doubt, experiences, faith, God, hiking, nature, planning, TBT, travel, vacation, wanderlust, Yosemite

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✔️ Kamala shirt ✔️ Kamala pearls ✔️ Ka ✔️ Kamala shirt
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It’s a great day to witness the shattering of a glass ceiling, to embrace empathy and decency, and to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

The work is only just beginning, but today, we celebrate. Congratulations, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris! 👏🏼🎉💙
What a beautiful, exhausting, festive, heartbreaki What a beautiful, exhausting, festive, heartbreaking, cozy, chaotic-but-strangely-quiet Christmas we had. ✨🎄✨

That’s a wrap for me on 2020—I’ll be off social media until sometime in January. May you be filled with peace and hope as we close this year but still wait for the close of this chapter in our history. 💜
I have faced Christmases full of grief and loss; d I have faced Christmases full of grief and loss; depression and rage; exhaustion and loneliness. But I can honestly say this is the weariest Christmas I can remember. I say that not to shine a spotlight on me, but to say that I have a feeling this might be your experience too. I’m with you.
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And so the words to my favorite Christmas hymn hit me different this year. They resonate in a place much deeper, more tender and true than ever before. I rejoice in the giggles of my meltdown-prone child. I rejoice in stolen moments alone in the dark, the room lit only by the glow of the Christmas tree. I rejoice in every video and every social media post I see of a frontline worker receiving the COVID vaccine, our ticket out of this nightmare. I rejoice in the vision that next Christmas might look more familiar than this one does. I rejoice in the hope of Christ, whose universal, creative, motherly love holds the whole universe together.
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On this Christmas Eve, I’ll leave you with this quote from Howard Thurman. I hope these words bring a slant of light to your day.
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“The symbol of Christmas—what is it? It is the rainbow arched over the roof of the sky when the clouds are heavy with foreboding. It is the cry of life in the newborn babe when, forced from its mother’s nest, it claims its right to live. It is the brooding Presence of the Eternal Spirit making crooked paths straight, rough places smooth, tired hearts refreshed, dead hopes stir with newness of life. It is the promise of tomorrow at the close of every day, the movement of life in defiance of death, and the assurance that love is sturdier than hate, that right is more confident than wrong, that good is more permanent than evil.”
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Whatever and however you celebrate at this time of year, I’m sending you all my love and peace. 💫
I found my Christmas spirit this weekend, just in I found my Christmas spirit this weekend, just in the nick of time.

I baked cookies with Selah without getting frustrated (first time ever?), took the kids on drive to see Christmas lights, and wrapped a bunch of gifts.

But here’s what I think did the trick, and please do steal this idea (because I stole it from someone else but have no idea who): Magical Movie Night™️.

On Saturday night, I stealthily placed a golden ticket under Selah’s pillow (which I printed from the internets and colored quickly with a yellow marker; good enough is good enough for Magical Movie Night!). We put Eamon to bed and got Selah ready for bed too, going through all the normal motions of brushing teeth, putting on pajamas, picking out a book. When we climbed into bed, I told her to look under her pillow.

She was confused when she found the ticket, and I told her it was for a Christmas movie night. “When?” she asked. “Right now!” I said. “What do you mean ‘right now’?” When it dawned on her that she was going to stay up past her bedtime to have a special movie night with Mommy and Daddy (sans Eamon), she lost her mind with excitement.

Bonus: Gramma was waiting downstairs with a bag of popcorn and Swedish Fish!

We snuggled under blankets, turned on Elf, and laughed our festive butts off. (This was her first time watching Elf, and it felt like the dawning of a new era. It’s such a big kid movie! And she loved it! Hold me. 😭)

Deck the halls, bring on Christmas, fill my mug with holly jolly goodness. 

I also acknowledge this has been a crappy year in so many ways, and I know many of you are not going to be able to access Christmas cheer this year. That’s okay. The real spirit of Christmas is light breaking through the dark, love making a way, and the beauty that can’t help seeping through the dirty, messy, horribly human moments of our lives. So you’re covered.

(And if you want to fake it ’til you make it, give Magical Movie Night a try. It’s the actual easiest.)
In which I couldn’t come up with a clever captio In which I couldn’t come up with a clever caption. There are signs of life but my brain is dead. 💀
“This is what I find most mystifying about Adven “This is what I find most mystifying about Advent: the period of waiting ultimately ends in great joy, but we can’t get to that great joy without intense, active, unbearable pain. In Advent we sense the mingling of anticipation and anxiety, excitement and disappointment, joy and pain, hope and fear.
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“On this side of history, we have the luxury of waiting with great hope, great joy, and great expectation. We know Jesus will be born, we know he will save us and redeem us, we know he will die and rise again, and we know he will set all things right one day.
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“But before Christ came, Advent was dark. It was lonely and unknown, as the Israelites waited in faith to hear from God, and all they got was… nothing. Silence.
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“Isn’t this more characteristic of the waiting we usually do? The waiting seasons of our lives are less often marked by joy and hope and more often marked by pain and fear. They are not often cozy or comforting but difficult and dark and even laborious.
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“We wait as a pregnant mother waits for her child to be born—there’s a vision of the joy to come, to be sure, but in the throes of gut-wrenching labor pains, we think we might actually die before we see that joy fulfilled. After a long season of pregnancy, when the fullness of time has arrived, the advent of labor ushers in the real period of waiting—and it is active and painful and raw.”
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// From “In the Fullness of Time,” a new blog post on @first15. There’s a link in my bio to the whole piece, with thoughts on pregnancy, Advent, and waiting well in an exceptionally hard year. 💜 Thank you so much to @first15 for publishing this post!
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Brittany L Bergman is a for-profit blog. Any company that I collaborate with is chosen by me and fits the theme and readership of my blog. At times, posts may contain affiliate links or sponsored content, which is never at any charge to you.

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