Day 43

We woke the kids up this morning with Dave's famous hashbrown breakfast. Ryan was thrilled! And it was definitely delicious. We had a long day ahead of us so we packed lots of snacks and water in backpacks and walked to the visitors center.

The exhibits as usual were very interesting. The kids and I spent at least 20 minutes digesting this display of how every living things needs each other. When people interfere and try to help by removing or adding something to the mix it messes all these things up!

We watched a very interesting movie about tourism in Sequoia. Once it became a national park there were cabins, campgrounds, a lodge and other comfort buildings built in the middle of the Giant Forest. At one time there were more than 300 buildings. The trees started to suffer because of many reasons but mainly the addition of plumbing, pollution, and  people. Some sequoia trees were even cut down because they were threatening to fall on cabins. Finally someone realized this wasn't a great idea so the buildings were all torn down and taken away in the 1980s. There were amazing before and after photos that showed the area's gentle return to nature. I was excited to see it today!

Ryan and I decided to watch a quick movie about prescribed fires.  There were these type of fires often where we live so we are familiar with them but I learned a little more how they prepare and execute the fires. Sequoias are trees that thrive after a fire with added sunshine to the forest floor and the opening of their cones.

The movie in the auditorium was about bears in Sequoia so we stayed for that one as well. Through all our travels we have learned so much about bear safety and what parks are doing to try to keep bears wild. This movie was more of the same with footage of car breakins and campground raids.

We hopped on the park shuttle next destined for the General Sherman Tree. I was thrilled to not have to drive and find parking in the popular areas. I would think this option is much better for the environment as well. I wish more parks would offer this to their guests!

The trail down to the tree was an easy walk on a paved path into a grove of sequoias. General Sherman tree is actually dead on the top but is still growing at the bottom to be the earth's largest living thing.  This guy is a young 2,200 years old!

After walking around the whole tree we checked out the rest of the grove. There were twins where you could see fire scars from different years. The fire scars were so big we could fit inside them!









There was also a tunnel carved out of a fallen tree that you could walk under. Us short people didn't even have to duck!




I was excited to see there was a program on the Buffalo soldiers this afternoon so we headed there next. The presenter was an intern that seemed to have a ton of knowledge about one of the leaders who visited Sequoia for a sunmer, Charles Young. Before there were national parks these protected areas were managed by the military. A few summers they were managed by a group of Buffalo Soldiers that accomplished more in one summer than other had the past three years.  This was definitely a topic we were going to add to our homeschool list as I had no idea this program even existed! We were joined at the end of the talk by our ranger from the program the night before. She added a few facts that she could share as well.

Dave noticed there was a food truck in the parking lot so we grabbed a quick lunch next before hopping back on the bus to the Giant Forest.  In front of the museum was a tree called The Sentinel that was considered an "average" sequoia tree. It was heavier than 2 fully-loaded jumbo jets. It was as tall as the path to my kids way down there at the end!





We still had about 45 minutes until the ranger hike we wanted to go on so we explored the museum for a little while.  We learned how difficult it was for the sequoia seed to make it into a mature tree - a 1 in a billion chance! We all took turns spinning the wheel to see if our seed would survive but none of us were successful.

Our ranger, Zoe, met us outside the visitors center for a hike around the Giant Forest.  We always seem to learn so much so fast during these programs! Our first stop was the junction with the Bear Hill trail. Back in the mid-1900s this was the garbage dump for the park. Seeing an easy meal, the bears would come at nights and get their fill of all the leftovers they could eat. Pretty soon after the park saw interest from the public to watch this so they built stadium seating. It wasn't until the bear got aggressive with eachother - fighting over the food and killing cubs who got in the middle of it - that park rangers put an end to this practice. We have learned this happened at other national parks as well and it appears we are still trying to fix the damage we did.

As we were listening to our ranger tell us this story, Dave points behind her and informs all of us that there is a bear a little up on the hill behind her. At first I thought he was kidding and I'm sure she was too but sure enough he was there! This was another yearling that at first seemed very interested in getting some grubs from a fallen tree but his attention turned to us. We watched and took pictures as he walked around peeking at us over branches and through bushes. Once we were all past him the ranger went back to try to shoo him away. They played peek-a-boo around a large pine tree a couple of times until he finally decided he was done with us.

I was elbowed by the kids as we continued our hike as we passed the ranger from the progam the night before. She was following us!

A few minutes later we were walking around a meadow and the ranger spotted a yellow-bellied marmot on a log next to the trail. This was a great wildlife day for her! He is a little hard to spot in this picture since he is in the sun but take it from the girls' reaction of "Awwwwww!" that he was very cute!










Ryan spotted this giant pine cone next to the trail. She found out it is from a sugar pine - the tallest conifer with the largest pine cones. It was bigger than her head!










I was having a difficult time spotting younger sequoias since their bark isn't red yet and the leaves looked so similar to other trees in the area. Our ranger took the time at our next spot to show everyone the difference between the incense-cedar and sequoia. We also stopped at a grove of what looked like baby sequoias at about 3 feet tall. She estimated they were a young 40 years old. They were in a shady spot so those sun-lovers probably weren't going to survive to the size of an average sequoia.

We took the shuttle back to our area to shop for post cards, stickers and such. Grammie shuttled back to her campground and we spend the afternoon exploring, reading, and playing cards. Ryan decided to eat dinner with us and go to our campground program that sounded fun - Capitalists, Cons, and Conservationists!

Dave and Ryan explored the area behind our campsite to add more pages to her Scavenger Hunt book. She'd brought it along on the trip to add some interesting items but until now she'd refused to do it without Dave doing it with her. For the second project Dave convinced her to work with Laney on an art project with something the found that was broken. They decided on making a stained glass sequoia tree with a piece of plastic they found in the road.



As I was getting ready to cook dinner we had some visitors. Just that afternoon I'd mentioned we hadn't seen any deer since we'd been at this park. Within an hour here was a bachelor group of mule deer. Laney took pictures as we stood and watched them for a few minutes.

As the sun was setting we learned about Hale Tharpe - the original settler in the area and his relationship with the Potwisha Native Americans. We learned about the government's idea to bring camels to the west, fake gold and silver mines, and the Kuwea Colony who first named the Sherman Tree the Karl Marx tree. So much history in one night! 

Day 41

We slept in a little this morning with a different plan than normal. Since Grammie had power she was making homemade biscuits for all of us! I was up with the sun to write but the kids slept in until 8:30. They were much happier this morning when they woke up!

We didn't have a tight schedule today so we were able to linger at breakfast and really enjoy the morning.  Grammie cooked enough biscuits for an army so we were all stuffed by the time we got up from the table. I took the kids to the game room with plans to play 2 games of ping pong, 2 games of foosball, and 1 game of pool. The kids were so awful at ping pong I shortened the games to 10 points and it still took us almost an hour to finish! There was lots of doubled-over laughter throughout the games as they got used to the rules, the paddles, and the bounce of the ball.

Next up was foosball which we'd played many times before so the games were pretty quick. Ryan and I blew away Laney and Brayden so Brayden and I joined forces. We were beating them so horribly we played facing backwards with our arms crossed. Talk about some serious brain coordination happening! Once they made it within 2 points of us we played facing forward
but still with our arms crossed. My brain was so slow to react as goalie that we almost lost it. We played a third game with Laney and I teamed up and it was definitely more even than any other matchup with a final score of 9-10.

On our drive to Yosemite we'd gone through the tiny town of Groveland. Brayden noticed a couple pizza places and I noticed a general store so we decided to drive back and explore for the morning. I was assuming there were a few gifts stores we could walk through or maybe a small museum. Unfortunately it was already pretty hot and the stores were a flop. There were more taverns than anything! We just dropped post cards at the post office and headed for pizza.


Once we walked into the pizza place I didn't have very high expectations but it actually was very good. The crust and sauce were delicious and ours was piled high with veggies. I asked the owner if there was a laudromat close and this was a good day to do it but it was more than 20 more minutes away. I noticed on my plans we were to have laundry at our next stop and Grammie already had laundry at hers. Our to-do-laundry or not-to-do-laundry quandry solved itself.

The kids were interested in swimming and I'd noticed a spot called Rainbow Pool on my map in between our sites so we headed that way next. With it being so warm and a Sunday the place was absolutely packed! We drove through anyway just to see the swimming hole then continued on to drop Grammie at her laundromat. We still had a few days of clothes left so the kids went to swim at the river and I relaxed and read with Lola.

I was rudely taken away from my book about 45 minutes later and close to napping with wet hugs from Brayden and Dave. They wanted me to come down to the river so we put Lola back in the RV and walked down. The girls were wrapped up in towels by the time I got down there but I talked them into going back in to jump off the rock. It was a nice little spot with colorful rocks but the water was COLD. There was no way I was getting in any higher than my ankles.

Once the kids got in dry clothes we headed back down to the game room for a few last games. It was a little more crowded now so the kids settled on playing pool. The kids are getting better but I don't think we'll have pool sharks any time soon.

After dinner we made the not-to-miss drive up to Glacier Point. This was supposed to be the best view of the valley and mountains in the park and I was hoping we would be able to time it to make the ranger program and the sunset. It looked like we were going to just make the program until the traffic came to a complete stop about 100 yards from the parking lot. We inched and inched closer and finally were at a point where everyone could hop out and I could find a parking spot. The parking lot wasn't too small, everyone had just been waiting for people to leave and holding up the rest of us.

I joined up with everyone after a few minutes and we walked the trail to the point. This was a spot Lola could join us so she was thrilled. It's been almost like everywhere we went we were missing someone until we are allowed to bring her too. Brayden not be as thrilled as she sat in his lap during the more than hour drive up!


We caught the last few minutes of the ranger program about fire then explored the point while the sun dipped behind the trees. There wasn't much color to the sky but it was still beautiful to see Half Dome from this perspective. On a rock by the edge I spotted a survey marker for our spot. We were at 7,214 feet.











The Santa Cruz Astronomy Club was all set up in the Amphitheater with a bunch of giant telescopes all aimed in one of two directions. There was still enough light to be able to easily see so I didn't
expect much until it got dark. Boy was I wrong! We saw Jupiter in all it's color with 4 moons in two of the telescopes. Then we saw Saturn as clear as if we were looking at our moon in the others.  It appeared so close it seemed fake!

There was a night sky program scheduled next but once we did the calculations of when we would actually arrive back at our campsite we decided to skip it. I could only imagine how brilliant the stars and planets were at this perfect spot. Ryan had been eyeing a rock ever since we got here and it was finally empty for her to climb. I promise this picture wasn't taken at JC Penney - it just got dark on us!

About halfway back to our spots I was so very glad we had opted out of the sky program. There wasn't any traffic but I was so tired I was yawning those big, noisy yawns that meant it was time for me to be horizontal. With the help of the cold wind on my face we made it back and all sunk into our sleeping bags for the night.

Day 37

It was very cold overnight so we woke the girls up with hot chocolate in their sleeping bags. Dave cooked a tall stack of french toast while I put together sandwiches for our hike today.  After the girls prepared all our backpacks for the hike they had just a few minutes to practice their log rolling.

We had a schedule to keep today so once we picked up Grammie we headed straight to the visitors center to watch the park's movie. With our long day we were thinking we wouldn't be able to fit it in any other time. I didn't know that much about Crater Lake except the island in the middle was a volcano. I found out the whole mountain - Mt Mazama - was a giant volcano that erupted and collapsed to leave this huge crater. The island  cinder cine in the middle was formed with later eruptions similar to the lava dome in the center of Mt. St. Helens.

The lake was the most impressive part holding some of the most pure water in the world. It is the deepest lake in the U.S. at 1,934 feet and has exceptional water clarity with scientists recording sight more than 100 feet deep. The lake has no streams flowing in or out.

Next we parked at the Cleetwood Trailhead to hike down to our boat that would take us to Wizard Island, named because of its sorcerer hat shape. The hike was only 1 mile but there was a 700-ft elevation change. The walk down to the water was very easy with switchbacks all the way down which meant it was going to be a strenuous hike up!  I couldn't get over how blue the water was and how clear! These pictures don't even begin to capture how beautiful blue it was.

Once we reached the bottom we had some time to look around the area. There was a large amount of people on the trail and I saw now most were coming down to jump off Jumping Rock and swim in the frigid water. I'm all for jumping off a rock and swimming but I think I'll save it for warm water. Ryan said she might try it after the hike.

All down the trail and scurrying around the dock were these adorable little guys trying to make friends with us. I was shocked with the park ranger said they have food for sale for them. Then he said the only problem is they carried the plague and I got the sarcasm. They are so cute though you just want to make them yours!







The shuttle to the island was quick and gave us cool views of the layers of rocks inside what was the mountain. The kids grabbed a quick snack and we started up the trail to the top. This was also a 700-ft elevation gain in a mile - tough work for all of us! The views were spectacular of the water all around us.

With so many rocks around from the volcano we found tons of heart rocks. I kept a red one but the kids wanted to make sure I got pictures of the ones they found. 

I noticed on the boat as we were getting close to the island many of the tree trunks appeared completely bright green. As we were hiking up the trail and were closer we couldn't help but notice the florescent green Wolf Moss on the trees. If the moss had fallen to the ground it especially stood out on the gray rocks.

Once we made it to the top the kids found a shady spot while I explored with the camera. The sun was hot but it seemed as you slipped into the shady the temperature instantly dropped about 20 degrees. It wasn't too long before Dave made it with our lunch. He was the lucky one with a big enough backpack to carry everything.  Grammie wasn't too far behind him and we were all quiet looking around at the view. 

The girls decided to go down into the crater of the cinder cone with me and the rest hiked around the rim. The trail was steep and gravel-y so we slipped and slid quite a bit the whole way down.  See us down there at the bottom!?

Grammie was quite a bit ahead of us this time as we all met back up at the trail to head back down. This way was much easier and we were able to really check out the view. The kids talked about their plans for the house once we got home as well as a potential zombie apocalypse. Several of the families of their friends made the list of ones they would like to be sure to live in a compound with.

We made it down to the Fumerole Bay trail split and almost decided to go see the bay but a guy coming up the trail discouraged us.

We had about 40 minutes until the shuttle boat came back so we decided to enjoy the water at the dock instead. We all stuck our tired feet in and enjoyed the cold water and the beautiful view. The cold water instantly cooled our entire bodies! We even drank our fill of the pure water. It was refreshing and delicious!  Dave talked Ryan into walking into the water around the bend because she wanted to go swimming.  She was all smiles as she wobbled around on the rock bottom.

Our boat arrived as scheduled and we were headed back to the dock before too long. There was a bit of a traffic jam of boats where we were to get off so our captain took us to see the "Old Man of the Lake".  This 30-foot tree has been bobbing up and down in the lake for more than 120 years. The water was so clear today we could see the roots of the tree down in the water. This tree travels all around the lake daily depending on the weather. The week before it had been hanging out at Wizard Island.              

The hike back up to the parking area was tougher than the Wizard Island hike. The switchbacks were helpful but grueling with little time for recovery. By the end we all just had our heads down waiting for the clearing in the trees to signal we were at the end. 

We brought all the kids back to the campsite so Dave could unload all the things he'd brought for them. The girls spent some time looking at the characters he'd drawn for them and Brayden shuffled through the selection of books he'd brought. We also gave Dave the gifts we'd purchased during our travel stops. Everyone was all smiles again!

I gathered the ingredients for dinner and we walked over to Grammie's RV to cook. Even when you are cooking in an RV it seems everything takes twice as long so Dave took the girls over to the village area of our campground. Brayden wasn't feeling well so he retired to his loft bed in the RV.

The hot sauce we bought Dave definitely lived up to its name as being the hottest on earth. He put his usual 4-5 shakes into his serving of soup and regretted it almost instantly! I'm not sure he tasted much after that!

The Rim Drive of Crater Lake was on my must-do list so we headed out after cleaning up. Brayden stayed in the RV as he still wasn't feeling well and Lola was going to keep him company.

We decided on a couple definite spots we wanted to see - the first being the Phantom Ship. This is a 17-story rock formation in the middle of the lake that appears to be a floating pirate ship.  This formation was actually a small volcano that pre-dated Mount Mazama but was strong enough to withstand the eruption to remain in Crater Lake.

The sun was starting to set so after a quick picture we decided to visit our next spot very quickly and come back for the rest of the sunset. The Pinnacles was a fascinating set of spires jutting out from the rocks below. Laney commented that it looked like some of the formations we'd seen in many of the caves we'd visited.  We learned these formations had been created from gases trying to escape through a fumerole where they came into contact with volcanic ash instantly cementing it. Over time the softer rock around the structures eroded away leaving these cool spikes.
We stayed briefly to enjoy the view then hopped back in the car anxious not to miss the sunset.

By the time we got back to the overlook there was gorgeous color all around! We sat to enjoy and admire the changes but I was a little frustrated to only have one or two spots to photograph through the trees. I wanted to get higher!

We had one more stop on our list that we had decided would be dark by the time we got there after the sunset. I suggested we keep going up to get above the trees and once we got there we were so glad we did! The colors were breathtaking and we could keep our eyes off the view.  We were definitely above the treeline now!

Laney took a bunch of panoramic shots of the sunset as that was the only way you could capture the 180-degree view! 

This ended up being one of my favorite shots Dave took because the water ended up looking like clouds. 

This sunset was the perfect end to our stay at Crater Lake. The temperature dropped about 20 degrees while we were there so we were all ready to get deep into our sleeping bags.  Tomorrow we would be moving further down the Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway.