Day Two - Part Two

Next stop, Moro Rock! We saw it driving up, remember? Little did I know, you can walk up to the top! Dan said he did this when he was a kid and wanted to bring us up there. It was a good climb but worth it. I wish I had my camera out when we arrived. There was a group of German tourists there, smiling and taking pictures of our car. Crazy.

Yep. I took a picture of the sign. After going through my Grandpa's videos, I found out how helpful this is!

Here we go!

This one is for Grandma Shelly. Tom does this at every high place he finds and wants me to take a picture for her.

Already a pretty good view and only half way up. I kept thinking the top was right around the corner and it just kept going.

Couldn't pass up this postcard photo op! All it needs is a little animal or bird.

Still not the top, but very cool. This is where Dan and the boys discussed bringing back some tennis balls to throw over and then go find at the bottom. Probably horrified everyone around us.

Jake at one side of the top. Pretty nice.

We're on top of the world!

That's the road we came up on! That tight u-turn is a turn out where you can stop and take a picture of the rock from below.

Spiffy panorama picture. I'm impressed by this function on my camera, but I saw several times a person taking a boat load of pictures all over (seemingly at random) with an iphone and then it spits out a huge picture. Cool.

Us! I made sure that the boys took a least a few pictures of us. People of the future are going to wonder what we looked like!

This park is full of danger! Eek!

Jake is probably describing some kind of rock monster idea. I'm not really sure.

And back down! This is a better picture of the tennis ball area. You can see why it would be fun to watch.

Bambi! This young buck came down the hill and nibbled at grass right near us. He didn't seem to mind the people much. I showed him to a couple little kids near by and the they wanted to throw rocks. Ha! At his house, the deer are pests eating their garden so they throw rocks to scare them off. Too funny! And then I watched another boy come down the hill and around the corner. They were both surprised and jumped! I swear I could sit and watch people all day if I lived here.

On the way back down from Moro Rock, we stopped at the Giant Trees Museum. It's another small museum specifically about the trees in this grove. I like the old pictures of the tourists. And I learned about the roots of these giants. They are super shallow for how tall the tree is but they go out shallow to the ground in all directions picking up as much rain water as they can.

Here's Jake's super pose with the Sentinel.

Then we went for one more walk even though our legs were about to fall off.

Dan saw this marmot!

And this one came out to pose for me. Can you tell I like the animals? I think that was my biggest complaint about this park. I didn't see enough animals!

We stood talking at this tree for a long time. You could see how it had grown over the rocks when it was alive.

Another pretty meadow. We were imagining the life cycle of these trees. Which ones were here first? How long had that log lain across the meadow?

Pretty nice huh?

A much needed drink of water isn't going to happen. We found no water fountains that worked.

After that, we were beat and headed back down the mountain to our camp. Jake complained that he wanted to go bowling and eat ice cream...not sure where he got that idea but Pinochle and hot dogs had to suffice!

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!