When we started this blog we decided that we would write after each adventure, making sure to give our honest review of the sites we visited, and all of the interesting things we saw along the way. However, after moving to California for our temporary stint here, we have not made a single blog post. For that, I sincerely apologize to our 9 readers :)Even though we are planning to write about our trip to California, which will be entertaining, I assure you, it is on hold for now so that I can write about our latest camping trip before I forget all the details.
There are many camping possibilities in close proximity to where we are stationed at the moment. However, we haven't camped once (and I am not counting where we are living in our RV) since we have been here. We have hiked at Point Magu State Park, and enjoyed some amazing views. We have played at the beach on the few days of warm weather, and even played at the beach on some not very warm days. But no camping. So now that we are only weeks away from leaving we decided that we had to pick a spot that would be so wonderful, so majestic, too truly breathtaking that it would make up for all of the camping that we had not done this entire 3 months. Oh and we wanted to stay in/near Sequoia National Forest to see some giant trees!! We also wanted to meet some friends about midway for both of us.
I was so excited to see some giant trees. I already knew what pictures I was going to take...we were going to link hands and try to get our family all the way around one of these mammoth trees or maybe we were going to huddle together in one of those tree caves. I had such high hopes of posting those pictures on here and putting them in the scrap books of our lives.
We had a late start planning this trip. It was only going to be a Saturday-Sunday trip, and we had to find a park that was halfway between the Roses (our long lost friends) and ourselves. So we chose Lake Success State Park, roughly 3 1/2 hr drive for us and 4 hr for them, close to the national forest, but not in it (it's cold in the forest in April). Then, we hit a slight snag in the plan when the night before we were going to leave Congress was about to close down the government, that includes federally funded campgrounds, for their inability to pass a budget seven months after it should have been passed. Luckily they got their act together and at 9:30 pm we heard that they made up some temporary fix, and so our trip was back on!
We arrived Saturday just after lunch, found our spots, chatted about what had gone on in the last 3 years, let all of our dogs swim in the beautiful lake, admired and toured the Roses newest addition to their family...their new RV, and sat around a nice hot (very smokey) fire. The view was great, but I imagine the lack of trees was a sign that come summertime, the scenery would turn from green to brown and the 70 degree days would soon turn to the 110s and above.
After breakfast on Sunday we packed up our stuff and started heading towards the forest. Supposedly it was only 30 miles or so from where we were camping. We stopped at a couple of National Forest info centers, but they were closed. So, we made one last stop at a gas station before we headed in the park and I spotted an info center.
I walked in and they looked very surprised to see anyone coming in. I asked if they had maps of the national forest and they looked at each other and then at me like I was speaking a different language. One lady said, "why do you need a map?", I said, "because I want to see some big trees", she said "well you are pretty early in the season, and the road to sequoias is closed because the snow is too deep on the mountain." I said "are you kidding me?....is there any chance I will see a big tree??" She went on to tell me that I could go roughly 30 miles before the road was closed and that she didn't suggest we hike around in the snow up there past the road closure. She said we might be able to get close enough to see them, but not close enough to take a picture with one.
I had to break the news to the rest of the group, everyone was as disappointed as I was. However we decided to drive to the road closure anyways and see what we could see. About 15 minutes later I was regretting this decision.... We were literally driving on the side of the mountain, no guard rails, no tree lined edges, just a drop off of hundreds, if not thousands of feet. We drove and drove and it seemed like eternity. Adelyn and I were getting car sick and it seemed like there was no end in sight.
Finally we made it to a tiny little town, full of little old people that all knew each other. The restaurant we went in was cute and quaint and straight out of an old movie. It was a post office/general store/restaurant/coffee shop. I loved it. Even though the food was just OK, and the service was slow (only because she was really really old) I really enjoyed it. Our waitress and the other woman who was cooking/working the register/being the post master, told us if we went just a few more miles up the mountain we would see some snow, possibly some big trees and would have lots of fun. So after lunch that is just what we did.
It took about 30 min to get 10 miles, it was just as terrifying as the rest of the trip had been. We saw a small saloon that was closed due to the snow covering the store up to the roof, and we stopped there to play in the snow. The kids LOVED IT. They had a blast, even though we did not have snow clothes on and they were completely soaked by the time we were done. We saw one large-ish tree in someones yard, so we maybe trespassed a little to take the kids picture next to it, but we left promptly and didn't cause any trouble.
It was still incredibly disappointing to see the giant sequoias off in the distance and not be able to get to them. They stood so much taller than the regular size trees. It was amazing. Someday we will have to make it back and see them up close. But even though it had a disappointing end, it was a great trip. It was nice to finally catch up with friends that we hadn't seen in too long. And we saw lots of really cool stuff....Thomas the train driving around the mountain, a train going into a tunnel in the middle of a mountain, beautiful views that even a great camera couldn't capture, and I'm sure I will think of more after I post this.
-Katie
