Today we covered a little more area in Sequoia and made the 25 mile extra drive to tour Kings Canyon.

I thought we would have more time to do the “Big Trees Trail” again today, but the weather didn’t agree with me. So here is a picture I left out yesterday thinking I would get better ones today.

The tree in the background between Trevor and Bill is the General Sherman Tree. It is the largest living tree on the planet, measured in total wood volume of the trunk. (The tree is neither the tallest, widest nor oldest)

On this vacation, the boys have taught me that throwing rocks in to a body of water is the epitome of relaxation and fun.

There is a beautiful waterfall behind all these giant rocks, but you have to boulder hop to get there – not for toddlers!

Moro rock decided that it would hide today

It got foggier as the day went on, and the temperature dropped to the low 40’s!

We visited the General Grant tree, originally thought to be the largest until the trees were accurately measured. 🙂

Another kind of tunnel log – you could walk through the length of the fallen hollow tree. It was very crowded though.

We warmed up in the restaurant and hit the road. Down at “base camp” by the river, it was 70 degrees. We threw more rocks in the water and got some tired boys to bed!

Sequoia National Park!

The most challenging part of this trip for Brendan was definitely the road in to the park. It is a super twisty, hairpin-turny, crazy road that climbs 5000 feet in elevation. He got a little car sick and we had to stop for lots of breaks.

There are beautiful places to pull out and look around.

The gray dome in the background is Moro Rock. There is actually a path of 400 stairs carved in to the rock that you can take to the top. We will have to do that on a different visit!

This giant fallen Sequoia tree is called “Auto Log” because it used to have a driveway where you could park a car.

Trevor says, “Gosh, golly, wow, would you look at the size of that tree??”

Brendan is hiking in the giant forest!

Trevor for scale, running to Bill and Brendan. Can you see them!?

This place is so quiet and surreal. It changes your perspective for a while.

I told Trevor that we would find pine cones bigger than his head, but these are not from the Sequoia trees!

This is the pine cone dropped by the giant!

This is the bottom of Auto Log

Driving through tunnel log

Impressive stats

Trevor and a tree – one of the small ones

While trying to drive up to the lodge, we hit a huge traffic jam. We finally saw why – 4 little bears making their way right along the road.

We watched them from the safety of the truck, but we simply could not believe the people running right out and close with their phones to take pictures. I know these bears are probably used to humans, but these people were being really dumb!

Restaurant!

Brendan has his “Em-nems”

Local brew

Sorting his “spaghetti”

A little walk after lunch

Big rolls of thunder preceded these clouds. There had been a weather forecast for storms, but we just got a few sprinkles.

Still, time to go. Boys are worn out!

Legos and ice cream before bed!

We didn’t even scratch the surface of things to see at the park. We’ll be headed back up in the morning to explore some other areas. We hope the weather will be nice to us again!

It was all about the driving today. We peeled the boys out of their beds and put them straight in to their car seats, hitting the road at 5:30am. It was a stay-in-pajamas-all-day day.

They were exceptionally good in the car, we just make stops in wide open places to stretch and snack and look around. The lunch stop today was “World’s Biggest Dinosaurs”. It get cheesier and cheesier every time I visit.

Brendan was not interested AT ALL. He wanted to get away from the dinosaurs.

You can pay to go up in the head of the T-Rex. (we did not)

There is plenty of cuteness on the ground

This big dinosaur is actually the gift shop.

Lunch and dinos

Several stops in wide open places…

We’ve made it to camp!

This will do!

We hope the rest of the week goes as smoothly as today! We can’t wait until tomorrow!