Road Trip: Sequoia, King's Canyon, Yosemite

Ahhhhh... out of the city and back into my comfort zone.

While we were in Cali, I decided we should visit three national parks:

Sequoia, King's Canyon, and Yosemite.

We hadn't been to any of them.

First up: Sequoia.

When we got there, the first thing we did was hike

the Moro Rock Trail. Holy cow.

The trail is short, but steep.

Not treacherous, but makes your thighs burn.

The views from the top are SPECTACULAR.

Love, love, love it.

Then it was off to see the trees!  

Even though you KNOW they are big before you get there,

their size is kind of unbelievable.

I mean, you can DRIVE THROUGH this one.

Crazy.

We had to stop by and see General Sherman,

supposedly the world's largest tree.

There were a few boulders around.

But we mostly just took in the giant trees surrounding us.

Toward the end of the day, I convinced the kids

that we had enough time and energy to do one

last hike, to Tokopah Falls.

They were not super excited. 

We found a cool stream to get our feet wet.

And a tunnel along the way.

The scenery around us was breathtaking.

But they were kind of done hiking.

And then you get to these gorgeous falls at the end!

This is how Care Bear felt about it...

I made her fake a smile for at least one pic. :)

The big kids were not as annoyed. Ha!

 I loved it and was so glad they hung in there with me.

Gorgeous sunset on the way to our lodge.

We stayed at a place called Snowline Lodge.

Oh my goodness. It was... adventurous.

I wish I would've taken pictures.

It had a little kitchen, which was nice.

The fridge looked like it had been there since 1952.

Then there were several beds squished together 

with a TV in a living room. Then there was a bathroom,

except there was no DOOR between the bathroom and

the living room. Wha???? Just a curtain that you could pull.

AWKWARD....

We were glad we just had one night there.

The next day we were off to King's Canyon,

which is right next to Sequoia. I had never heard 

of it, but it turned out to be my favorite of the three parks.

It is less crowded, but just as beautiful as the others. 

We hiked on the Zumwalt Meadows Trail.

 The kids had better attitudes about hiking.

Always looking for a route...

We found wild raspberries along the way.

Another cool tunnel.

I love hiking next to water.

We wore our swimsuits under our clothes,

so we could swim in these cold mountain streams.

Brrrrrr!

Fun, but definitely chilly.

Zumwalt Meadow

We also stopped at Roaring River Falls.

I guess some years you can swim there,

but the river was WAY too strong to swim this year.

It was powerful!

And pretty.

Always dancing...

Or doing the splits.

We highly recommend King's Canyon!

That night we had a couple hours to drive to our next Air BnB.

This one was SO cute. We loved it and would've been

happy to stay another night or two if we had time. 

The next day, we were off to Yosemite.

Ummm... We didn't love it.

We were there on a Friday in July and it was PACKED.

Cars everywhere. Hard to find a parking place.

Plus, this park is not well-labeled.

There are one-way roads and the signs are confusing

and if I took a wrong turn, we'd be stuck on that 

road for a long time before we could turn around.

Overall, not our favorite experience.

But my climbers got to see El Capitan!

Which is HUGE in the rock climbing community.

And the weather was perfect.

We brought our bouldering mat and the climbers

got to do their thing for a while in the morning.

Oh, how I'll miss watching these two climb together!

The mat is bigger than Care Bear.

See her little legs sticking out of the bottom? Ha! 

Still doing splits!

Look at those forearm muscles!

When the climbers were pumped,

I wanted to go hiking.

I REALLY wanted to hike to Mirror Lake,

which we had heard was more of a pond 

at this time of year, but was still worth

hiking to. We almost gave up before we got there.

The road where you're supposed to turn was blocked off.

One of the campground workers told me to just

drive past the "Parking Lot Full" sign and see if 

I could find a spot. I felt like such a rebel.

But we found several spots open!

The hike was great. 

Stopped to swim along the way.

C found a caterpillar.

Mirror Lake was pretty crowded, but we had fun swimming there. 

We thought it looked fun to jump off this boulder

in the middle of the pond. 

The climbers just popped right up there.

No problem.

Wheee!

They made it look easy!

And fun!

Whitney and I on the other hand? Ha!

Oh my gosh! It was hilarious.

I wanted a picture of all three kids jumping off the rock,

so I stayed on the shore while B tried to help W get up.

Try as they might, it was NOT happening.

Even with all of B's muscles, he could NOT get W up.

From the shore, I decided she must not actually want 

to jump off the rock, so she was pretending it was too

hard to get on. Oh, boy, was I wrong.

I jumped in, swam over, and FAILED twenty times

trying to get up on that dang wrong. Even with B

trying to pull me up, I couldn't do it. It was so funny.

One time, I was laughing so hard that I ended up swallowing

a big mouthful of Mirror Lake. Gross!

But, eventually, I did make it up.

At least on to the lower ledge of that rock.

I was afraid if I tried to climb up to the top,

we might have to call an helicopter to get me.

Yippee for my little jump and B's awesome flip!

 I even got lost trying to leave the park. Ugh.

But we did get to see some beautiful

mountain reflections in the water on the way out.

OH, and I got to see a little black bear walking

on the side of the road while we were driving

That was amazing.

So happy I could spend these few days enjoying

the glorious beauties of natures with my kiddos.

The world is just gorgeous.