Keeping up with the Bragassas: Sequoia National Park

Last week, we found out that Brian was going to have a 4 day weekend for Veteran's Day. Instead of just staying around here all weekend, we decided to go somewhere! After some quick research about where we should go, we decided on Sequoia National Park in south eastern California. I immediately started searching for a cabin and luckily found one that took dogs (of course we brought Vida) and that was big enough so we could invite some friends! Within only 2 days to plan, I think we did a pretty good job at planning a vacation! Our trip started on Thursday morning with a car packed with enough food and stuff to take care of an army for a year! We literally packed our car full with everything we could think of! The drive only took about 4.5 hours and the scenery was beautiful. Now having been the person who did all of the research, I was convinced that the town right outside of the park had to be a decent sized town considering that there is only one lodge inside the park, meaning that all of the other visitors would have to stay outside of the park. Boy oh boy was I wrong! The town was tiny and had a gas station, a few motels, and a pizza place! Oh well...at least we brought our own food! Anyway, Brian and I decided to go to the park first thing so we could get the maps and information we would need for the following day. Driving up to the park, I felt pretty optimistic about our trip, considering all the research I had done over the past few days regarding road conditions, trails, weather etc, but I'm beginning to believe in Murphy's Law more and more (Murphy's Law says that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong!). Finally, the park gates are within sight and what do ya know? There's a sign outside the park stating that tire chains are required to get into the main parts of the park due to snow...WHAT?!?! I checked the weather channel about 500 times and the park website equally as much and neither mentioned anything about snow or tire chains! I slightly freaked out when I heard that chains would cost $80/day and not to mention would ruin your car. Oh well! We took the information from the park ranger and proceeded to find our cabin and break the news to the rest of the group.

Our cabin was a 4br/2ba cabin in the middle of nowhere! It was a 7 mile drive down a super curvy, narrow, mountain road (without side rails! Yikes!) and where "wild" cows and steer liked to hang out. Honestly, it was a beautiful drive! We finally reached the cabin and met up with our friends who made it there minutes before we did. Speaking of friends, two families were going with us...the Stiners and the Cones. The Stiners (Sarah and Kollin) have a little girl names Isabel who is one and a half, and the Cones (Randall and Mindy) have a little girl named Aubrey who is 2 and a little baby named Patton who is 5 months. We, of course, have our dogter Vida who is 3 - haha! Back to the cabin...We walked inside and were kind of relieved to see that it was a very "lived in" place, meaning that it was very kid/dog friendly where we didn't have to worry about breaking much or ruining anything. There were about 7 couches, a huge table, huge living room for the kids to play in, a movie projector, and 4 big bedrooms with king size beds:) Not to mention the entire property was fenced in so Vida would just go outside and sniff around. The only downside was that the house was solar powered so no blow dryers or toasters but we did just fine. Thanks to our friend Kollin, we got the heat and the water heater turned on...Brian and I didn't know what a pilot light was nor how to get the appliance from pilot to on so we're lucky we brought Kollin along, otherwise we would have been taking cold showers in a really cold house. Once everyone got there, we cooked out, let the kids (and Vida) play and then played some games.

The next morning we were up early, the Stiner's made pancakes, and then we packed up our bags and got ready to go to the park. After some discussion, we decided that we would take our chances with the chain thing and just not do it. If the park rangers asked, we would just tell them we had them in our car. We piled into two cars and drove down the 7 mile windy road to the park, then proceeded up the windy roads in the park. About 10 miles in, there was road construction that only let people through every hour on the hour. Unfortunately (of fortunately for those of us who don't like windy mountain roads) we had to wait about 30 minutes at the construction but it was a nice break for the kids to get out of the car and to run around a little bit. Finally, we made it into the Giant Forest and to Moro Rock. It was significantly colder up there, and there was SNOW! The roads were fine though and we would have been the only people with chains on our tires - apparently everyone decided to not get them! We parked our cars and decided to hike Moro Rock. The views were beautiful from up top! After that, we hiked around a little bit more near the giant Sequoia trees, drove to the General Sherman tree (the largest living thing on the planet), and drove through tunnel tree. Since it's starting to get dark earlier, we left the park around 4 and headed back down the mountain. We cooked lasagna for dinner and watched Elf when we got back, then all headed to bed pretty early.

The next day, the Cones had to head back to Vacaville, but the Stiners and Brian and I were able to stay for another night. We decided to head back into the park to hike to Tokopah Falls. On the way up to the trail head, poor little Isabel was kinda fussy for no apparent reason. When we were about 10 minutes away from the trail head, she got car sick:( I felt so bad, but she apparently felt much better!! After a few minutes of cleaning up, and getting Isabel in some clean clothes, we were back on our way. The trial head was way up elevation wise and there was tons of snow...it was amazing! We hiked the 1.75 miles to the waterfalls which were gorgeous! The snow really added something to the scenery too! Isabel felt great and rode on her daddy's back the whole time in a little carrier thing until we got to the falls, where she proceeded to eat tons of snow - haha! That night, we ate pizza in the town of Three Rivers and then went home and played some more card games. Our trip went by super fast but we had a great time!

Half of our cabin...couldn't get the whole things because trees were in the way. There was nothing out here but the night sky was unbelievable! I've never seen so many stars.