Day #5- Atkins Go West 2.0 –Adventure of a Lifetime Continued…(May the Forest Be with You)

June 13, 2017 – Sequoia National Park to King’s Canyon National Park

Atkins Go West 2.0 –Adventure of a Lifetime Continued…(May the Forest be with You!)

Weirdest thing we saw: Mrs. Racey on the General Sherman Trail.  She and I taught together at Fountain City Elementary more than 10 years ago.  I looked up and saw a TN t-shirt and at the same time she recognized me! 

Funniest thing we heard:  The kids belting out Disney Songs

Most memorable moment of the day:  Seeing our first Sequoia tree.

Captain’s Log:  We woke up very excited about our day’s adventures.  We ate breakfast at the hotel—I am getting great at manning the waffle station by this point!  Our hotel was in a little town (Three Rivers) just outside of the park. 

 

We drove to the park entrance where they were doing another controlled burn and made our way up one of the most insanely curvy and fun roads I’ve ever driven! 

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We drove to the park entrance where they were doing another controlled burn and made our way up one of the most insanely curvy and fun roads I’ve ever driven!  We stopped to take pictures of the famous Moro Rock.

 

We enjoyed the ride by singing along to Kayden’s Disney playlist.  When Hercules’s song, “I can go the distance” song came on we turned a curve and saw our first grove of Sequoia trees.  I am not a super emotional person, but this moment touched me and I was fighting back an ugly cry.  

We you realize your place in the Universe in a single moment, it is overwhelming.  Why would God create these enormous trees?  For moments just like this.  There is no questioning him when you stand beneath one of these creatures.  We parked at the first turn out we could find and hiked down to a grove of trees.  The kids and Chris were just as amazed and moved as I was. 

We drove on to the Sequoia Visitor’s Center where we saw our first named tree, Sentinel Tree. 

 It was an averaged size mature tree, but it was 28 feet in diameter and 258 feet tall (like a 23 story building!). The park service had tiles on the sidewalk to represent this tree.  You could walk down the tiles to really get a sense of how tall and how wide it was.  We explored the Visitor’s Center and got information about the park and bought our bumper stickers and post cards and Junior Ranger Books.  Kayden made the remark that if we continue our trip, I won’t be able to see out my back windshield because of all the stickers!  Kayden got a t-shirt here too. 

Next we drove to the General Sherman’s Trail to see the largest single living thing on Earth (volume).  Once you park, you walk down 2/3 a mile trail to the tree.  Along the way you pass other enormous trees. 

 I don’t know the right adjectives to accurately describe General Sherman.  

You just need to save your pennies and find a way to make it here yourself.  Benjamin and I finally fulfilled a bucket list item together!  We all had pictures made at the base of the great tree.  We walked around the Sherman Trail to see other huge trees, fallen trees, holes in trees, and a set of twin and triplet trees.  

 

We hiked back up the trail to the car and I looked up to see Mrs. Racey, a teacher I worked with at Fountain City! 

 It was so weird to see folks we knew so far away from home. 

We continued on down the Generals Hwy to have a picnic at Lodge Pole picnic area by the river.  Another picnic of PB&J, but it tasted so good in this amazing scenery.  I made the comment that I am so glad that our kids love peanut butter and that none of us are allergic!  

The kids loved watching this amazing bird that was almost electric blue hanging out by our table.  He was totally aware that we would drop bits of food and he would have his lunch as well!

After much discussion, we decided to leave Sequoia National Park for the afternoon and drive over to the adjacent park, Kings Canyon National Park since we were already halfway there at this point. 

 We drove across the mountain to the General Grant Trail.  

Here we parked and walked up to the tree.  This grove seemed even more impressive.  The trees were more spread out so you could really take in their size.  The General Grant Tree is the 3^rd largest being in the world (volume) and THE widest Sequoia Tree.  

The trail also had fallen trees and trees you could crawl/walk into for pictures and play. 

Using our trusted park map (they give you one each time you enter the parks), we found an amazing drive and hike called Panoramic View Trail.  This was a tiny one lane road straight up the mountain that took us to a short, but scenic hike to an overlook.  The views were incredible.  

We met some folks up top who lived in Kings Canyon 5 months out of the year at a Christian camp.  One white haired lady was very excited to tell us all about what we were seeing in the valley below.  I wonder just how many times in her life she had been up to this spot.  I hope that I am still having adventures when my hair is white and I need my cane to steady me. 

The boys actually got to finish the requirements for their Junior Ranger Badges at this park because we stayed long enough.  We went to the Ranger’s station where the boys turned in their books and were officially sworn in as Junior Rangers.  

Joe-Nicholas immediately wanted to fulfill his duty and reported a family we saw that were “stealing” a tree branch that was perched atop their car.  The ranger graciously thanked him for doing a good job.  Later we saw the family and Joe-Nicholas wanted to take down their license plate so that they could be tracked down later.  Hilarious!

We met a young couple at the station that was desperately looking for an electric outlet to pump up their air mattress.  I guess they had never camped in the National Park and they were expecting power.  Kayden reminded me that we had a converter charger in our car that they could use.  They ran back to their campsite to grab the mattress and drove back our car.  They were very grateful to have power to fill their mattress.  I think it had been a cold, uncomfortable sleep the night before.  We laughed out loud watching the couple trying to get the fill mattress back into their tiny car!  Another family having a great adventure!

It was getting late, so we decided on ordering a pizza at the park’s snack bar.  We ate it in the van on the way back to Sequoia.  We sang more songs and listened to music on our way to Moro Rock. Along the way we got to see a momma black bear and her twin babies!  

They were tiny and one was brown and one was black!  We finally got to the trail and drove around another grove of massive trees.  The road looped around until we got to the tunnel tree. 

 It was so cool to drive through a Sequoia tree!  It was getting close to sunset, so we parked at Morrow Rock and started to climb the 400 plus stairs up the huge granite rock jutting out the side of the mountain.  About half way up, there was a place to sit that faced the western sky so Kayden, Benjamin, and I stopped here to enjoy the sunset.  It was so high that even I was feeling a little queasy and heights don’t typically bother me at all.  

Daddy and Joe-Nicholas continued on up the cliff to the top.  Joe-Joe thinks that he caught a glimpse of a Peregrine Falcon diving down the cliff.  The rock is closed to rock climbers because of the birds.  We watched the sun slowly set behind the mountains.  It was an awesome scene.

We got to see one more bear on our way down the mountain.  This has been my favorite day so far.  I want everyone reading this blog to make plans to somehow get to California to see this place. 

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