Day Two - Part One

Dan always wakes up before dawn. I'm up when the second little pot of coffee is done. The boys are usually up earlier than when they are at home, but later than us. So we get to talk, read, and plan our day. This day I was fully enjoying the multitude of woodpeckers that were in the campground. Oak trees = acorn woodpeckers!

Those holes have nests in them and I watched the birds fly in and out of them. When the adults approach you can hear the screeching of chicks! And they were sitting inside with their heads sticking out. Too cute!

Ok, get up you guys!

Tom took this picture of me. I like it!

 We couldn't leave right away for the park because we arrived after the office closed yesterday and couldn't officially check in. We had to wait until 9am when the RV parks office opened, check in, make sure we could stay in the spot we picked for the next few days, and then hit the road. The staff was super nice!

The park is only a few miles up the road. We paid for an "Inter-agency Pass" since we planned on going up to Yosemite next week. It was nice later because we didn't have to wait in line to get into the park. We just showed our card and they waved us through. And it's good for a year, so we can use it at our park too.

Heading up the highway to Moro Rock!

We stopped at the Foothills Visitor Center and were very glad we were driving the bug. It's small and easy to park just about anywhere! The visitor center is very small but the people there were helpful about what to see first and about getting tickets to Crystal Cave. We decided to do that tomorrow and get an earlier start.

Moro Rock - Little did we know, there are people up there!

The first place we stopped at was the Fallen Log. We drive the truck through here last time! There is also the Auto Log (you don't write in it) but you can't drive up on top of it anymore. Crazy, but dead trees do decay and after a hundred years it's just not safe to drive on anymore.

Bob the Baja Bug in the Tunnel Log

Tom has to check how tall he is everywhere we go.

The sign. I take a lot of pictures of signs. Some day you will all thank me!

The boys checking it out.

The next stop was Crescent Meadow. We planned on having a picnic there but when we got to it, I saw this sign and got nervous...

But we had our picnic anyway.

And we kept a sentry!

Yeah. I think I'll just throw my food and run!

 

How's that for a big tree stump?

There is a running gag in our family regarding "rushing out onto the meadow". When Dan broke for it, the boys followed. I wish I had the video camera running!

Just a little patch of snow left.

The hills are alive...

Fish! The boys watching fish swim under the walkway.

This is my favorite view of the forest. I tend stop and look up very often and have loads of these kind of pictures.

Tom emerging from the tree core! "What if I came out and it was one hundred years later?!"

I had Jake pose here because I believe this tree looks like an alien space ship and you have to have him in there for scale.

Climbing onto a natural path across the meadow.

Tom contemplating the beauty. Really. He sat there a long time. Jake finally joined him. They walked out farther, found a part that sounded strange, and took video of each other stepping on it.

Bambi!

Two handsome boys at the base of a giant.

Approaching the Chimney Tree.

What are they looking at?

This. Creepy, huh?

Tom being irreverent while I take a picture of the sign.

Me and my baby Jake! He wanted this picture. I think because it made him look a bit taller than me. Don't worry, it will be soon my son! He's only an inch shorter than me right now.

First Day of Our Awesome Family Vacation

Since every day is an adventure around here and every thing is "learning experience", our vacations tend to end up in a huge snowball of history, science, literature, and fun! This year, I didn't have the computer with me to upload my pictures and write on my blog while we were traveling. The places we went did not have cell phone service and Dad was on vacation, so it I did not expect to have the time to sit around and do it. I barely had time to write things down in the camping log we keep in the RV! So, I'm looking at that, getting the photos from Dad's phone, and adding my own thoughts as I update the blog. I've been terrible remiss here anyway and really do a better job keeping up. So here it goes...

Day One!

We hit the road! This is one of the closest trips we've taken. It was different from the beginning. First of all, Dad had two whole weeks off from in work and we planned on being gone that whole time. We were going to an area that did not have good cell service this time for that very reason. And we planned on going to one place for several days. This is not our normal version of a family trip! But we did one thing we always do, we didn't make reservations! We have a general idea of what RV park we may stay in, but actual accommodations are usually up in the air. 

Tom loves hitting the open road!

And Jake usually falls asleep. To be honest, so do I!

First stop for gas in Palmdale. Did you know there really is a "quickie mart"?! Dan turned into the small gas station and we almost didn't make the turn. We tow a VW bug with a tow bar and can't really back up. Tom jumped out and guided Dan past the post. We cleared it by half an inch! But it was really cheap gas!

I thought we were the only ones to have wind turbines! These ones were on the other side of the Tehachapi Pass.

Some of them were huge!

Another gas stop in Visalia. Our RV gets about 8 mpg AND the gas gauge doesn't work (despite numerous repairs), so we are always calculating the next stop. It leads to lots of math and map skills! We use an app called "Gas Buddy" that has saved us money on every trip.

During the drive, Dan has his MiFi running so that I could snap pictures and post to Facebook our progress, but once we got to our destination there was no cell service. The RV park we were going to closed at 3pm on Sundays, so we couldn't check in and use their WiFi, so we were dark! Ahhh! We found a spot, did the after hours check in, and Dan and Tom drove the bug back to town to call Mom and check in on Facebook, so our family didn't think we fell off a cliff.

Sequoia RV Ranch in Three Rivers was beautiful. We found them on RVParky and their website had great directions. There wasn't a bad spot in the park! And even better, there were several available right along the river. This one was even a "pull through" and full hook-ups for $54 a night! Pretty nice!

How's that for a view out your RV front door?!

The old RV has got us around the Southwestern United States pretty well. I like to be sure I get a picture of her wherever we park!

This is the "Swimming Hole". They don't have a pool, but a river is WAY more fun.

Jake throwing a few rocks in to see how deep it is.

So that was the first day. We had spaghetti and sausage for dinner, played a few hands of Pinochle, and hit the hay. I love travel days. I'm slightly stressed because I don't know exactly where we will be parking for the night. I love watching the road as we drive. I like to note down places and ideas for next time we come through the area. Like did you even know there was a Swedish Village outside of Fresno? It's called Kingsburg. I like talking with my family and listening to the radio. It's anticipation of great things to come!

Hiking at Indian Canyon

Earlier this week we went for hike with some friends and learned more about using a map and compass. We had loads of fun and I got a few questions answered, but Jake wanted to go back and explore the area some more today and I'm glad he did. We were there about two hours climbing over the rocks. There were lots of plants and grasses. Tom dug in the sand in the wash and it was damp. It's been months since there has been rain. The boys wanted me to go up to the top of the rocks they were climbing earlier, but about half way up I decided I didn't like it and we changed direction. We went across the wash and up some slick looking rocks. This is what we found.

 

This rock tried to eat Jake!

 

Tom will go in now that Jake has checked it out. 

 

That's one strange looking cave animal. Both the boys are in there!

 

This tree is dead now, but it grew hear around the rocks. Crazy!

 

This is Jake looking disgusted that I won't go farther up.

 

Cool rocks inside other rocks.

 

We found water! Lots of cool larvae and bugs in here.

 

Water was seeping out from under this one. We have to find the source!

 

More water. And deeper.

 

Time for a snack break.

 

It's clear and cool here.

 

Tom insisted on going up one side and we went up the other. He's over there somewhere.

 

Jake and I went this way.

 

Looking down into the gorge. It's totally cut by water and you can hear is dripping and running.

  

Down on the rocks below.

 

Tom's following up our side "Smeagle" like.

 

I think this looks like and alien coming out of the rocks.

 

Lots of these cool looking rocks below.

It was a great day. I'm sure we will be back there again soon! 

I have to add a few things to this post. We talk a lot while we are doing things like this. Here are some of the conversations.

Jake asked "If it were a matter of life and death, could we have a fire outside of a fire ring." Two things in play here. He's reading the rules (posted obsessively all over the park) and he's pulling in a scene from "The Fellowship of the Ring" which he just finished reading. It led to a discussion of rights and self-preservation which was awesome and I pulled some ideas I had read recently from Hobbes' "Leviathan".

We had seen some ideas on Facebook this morning about hiding things in plain sight, like money and cell phones and such. We thought about how we could hide some money in a bug out bag along with what we should have in that bag. Jake wants to have a more complete bag so that he is prepared if we are ever stuck on a hike. We talked about the difference between opportunistic crimes and premeditated crimes. Funny, because none of us would ever consider taking something just because there was no one around holding on to it. Tom said he found a soda cup and wrapper at the park the other day, but assumed someone had left it there for a reason and didn't throw it away.

Some guys came up the rocks behind us while we were hiking, with a big dog on a leash. It made me suddenly aware of how vulnerable we were. Our only way of protecting ourselves was a couple of boys with pocket knives. I wished I had some kind of weapon. There we were, alone, in the desert. I'm a law abiding citizen so I don't have a weapon. I bet that people that have the inclination to hurt people don't think "Oh, wait, I'm going onto national park property, I better leave my gun in the car."

We found a rock that looked like an elephant foot. We decided an elephant fell into a worm hole on the other side of the planet and it closed before he fell all the way through. It would have funny to see an elephant shoot up from the ground feet first and then fall back to earth when it realized the gravity had changed. That would be one confuse elephant.

While sitting in the shade of a giant boulder have way up the rocks, Tom decided that this place needed a better name. Rattlesnake Canyon just didn't do it. It had to describe the place better but not be too obvious. After a few minutes of quiet contemplation, he announced "The Valley of Moses"! Jake nods, "Yes! Water from the rocks!" Which led to us retelling the story and I adding that the reason Moses didn't get to cross the Jordan was because of that incident, listening to God, Moses of all people should have known better.

Loads of "Lord of the Rings" references as we climbed. Oh! And my personal favorite. "This would be an ideal place to meditate, or smoke pot." (which is what the guys following us and eventually passed us looked like they were going to do) The boys hope they brought a backpack full of brownies. The conversation went downhill from there!