California Vacation

We went to California in May. One of our friends told us that they were trying to find people so that they could get some group discount tickets to Disneyland, and we thought this was a pretty great excuse to go on a trip. I tend to be a little hard on Disneyland since I don't want to teach my children to be "thrill seekers" but to find joy in the subtle and deeper beauty around them, but we had so much fun being together and with friends. I think there was a lot of subtle beauty in that, even though there was some not-so-subtle thrill-seeking too :-)

We left on a Friday after Rock's work and drove for 9 hours to a KOA in Barstow where we slept in a Tepee.  It seemed like a fun adventure, and it was.  The only problem was that there were gusts of wind throughout the night that made the Teepee flap so loudly that it was hard to get any sleep - for me and James anyway.  I don't know if Barstow's always that windy at night, but if so - I don't think we'll do the teepee again ;-)  The next day, we got up and drove to the beach.

The kids loved the tide pools,

We didn't get a lot of pictures at the beach because everything is so sandy and getting the camera out is risky, but besides the sand and the tidepools, we played in the cold water a bit - at least the older kids and their dad did.  Gem mostly threw and ate sand and Ray was afraid of the water so he'd cry if the waves got too close.  Mostly he dug in the sand as well.  We camped that night in some of the "mountains" near Disneyland  - we saw some wild rabbits :-)

The second day we met our friends at a church in California and then we all went to a beach since we had no "home" to go to.  We were trying to keep the Sabbath day holy, but I'm not sure how well we did.   That night we checked into a hotel and I was thankful for a bed.

The next day was Disneyland.  The first thing we did was let Ray see Mickey.  He has seen several Mickey shows on youtube and he was really excited to see the real Mickey.  He hugged him and then stared at him in wonder.  It was hard to get him to look away so we could take his picture.

After that, we rode every ride we could ride.  We weren't sure if we should leave our friends alone so they could enjoy some family time or if we should tag along with them.  They warned us that they are a little crazy when they go to Disneyland...they get there an hour early and know all of the tricks with fast passes and getting to as many rides as possible.  We decided to try it and see how it went that first day.  

It was A LOT of fun. 

So we followed them around for the next three days :-)

After the third day we said a sad goodbye to our friends and drove to Sequoia National Park.  I'm used to being surrounded by beautiful things since I grew up exploring Utah, but Sequoia was incredible.  I was simply awed.

Before going to the giant trees, we spent the night in the foothills of the forest.  When I woke up in the morning, there was a deer right next to the tent.  I whispered to the kids to come and see it, and I snapped some shots of it's herd before they got scared off by a dog.

We packed up and went up to see the Sequoia trees.  We were driving up a winding road and after a while we saw our first Sequoia tree.  Everyone in the car just said, "Whoa."

We got to the parking lot of our hike and Bud ran out to hug a tree.  We laughed when we saw how tiny he looked next to the enormous tree.

Climbing a tree...sideways

Walking up a tree

Walking into the roots of a tree

we could play around inside some of them

Can you see my kids heads inside the tree?

On our second day at Sequoia, Bud and I went on a hike together because some of the kids had fallen asleep in the car, so Rock stayed with them and Bud and I went on one of the most beautiful hikes I've ever been on.  It takes you through a green meadow, with wild flowers next to a lake surrounded by Sequoias, to a cabin built into a fallen Sequoia tree by an early explorer.  The hike was so cool that I made Rock go on it when Bud and I got back to the car with one sleeping child (the rest had awoken and were playing on the boulders near by). 

We saw some deer along the way

Here's the cabin.  The bed and table are literally inside the tree.  You can see how it extends back. So cool.

As we were driving away from the trail head to that hike, I spotted a black bear with her cub.  We took lots of pictures.

On the way home from Sequoia, we decided to take a detour through Yosemite National Park.  We figured it would add 2 hours to our trip home, but it would be worth it.  It ended up adding a lot more.  I can't decide if it was worth it or not, since we only stayed for a picnic lunch at Yosemite falls, but it really was beautiful.  We'll have to go back sometime.

Since Yosemite took so much longer than expected because of some road closures, we had to make an unplanned overnight stay in Nevada.  We stopped at "The Clown Motel".  We laughed at how eerily strange the clown pictures on the walls were and how their lobby had hundreds of clown porcelain figures. 

We laughed even more when Rock walked out the door in the morning and saw the motel was right next to an old mining cemetery.  We later found out that youtube has pictures of ghosts haunting the area.  Good thing we didn't see any :-)

We got up the next morning (on Mother's day) and drove 8 hours to my mom's house. 

The kids did well in the car, except I should have probably postponed potty-training Ray until after the trip - we had to stop more than we may have liked :-)  And Gem did cry every time I put him in his car seat for a couple of weeks after the trip, but he has gotten over the trauma now ;-)  It was such a memorable vacation.