1st Road Trip. 7 days. Begin and end in San Fran

[hooker771]

Hello all,

I just stumbled across this great forum and am glad I did! I searched the city San Francisco but everyones trips sem to be specific and different from my needs.

Here is what I know (not much) and would love some input and ideas as this will be for my 10th anniversiary and would love to have a great trip. We live in TN and its also our first time to the west coast and we are in way over our heads in trying pick out and to see the best sites.

We will be flying into San Francisco on July 3rd and out on the 10th. Im thinking that we should stick around and see fireworks on the 4th in SF but there may be more spectacular options out there?? From SF we could go south and make a loop or go east and make a loop. We would have to be back in SF at least by the 9th. Other than that we are wide open. I guess im looking for input on what to see, routes, where to stay along the way, etc. All we will have is what we pack and a rental car so the only limit is imagination.

Some sites I have read about that I would like to get to are (not necessarily in this order)....
Yosemite Nat Park
Tioga Pass
Sequoia Nat Forest
Hwy 1

So you can see that by that order im thinking about heading east, then south looping back to the coast and back up the hwy to SF.

My tentative thinking..... I would spend 3rd and 4th in and around SF (day trip on 4th but get back for fireworks)? Where is best place for FW viewing? Where to go on the day trip? Maybe North?
Leave on the 5th east to national parks. Where to stay?
6th and 7th in the parks a long the way headed south. Where to stay?
8th on the west coast off hwy 1 (where to stay?)
9th back in or around SF ready to fly out on 10th from SF

Im not sure if we should go ahead and make reservations at each place or play it by ear? But im sure that this is going to be a busy week so if I can get reservations I probably need to start doing that ASAP.

We will be site seeing and I enjoy photography as a hobby other than that I open it up to you all.

Please help.

Thank you!