Labor Day Weekend

So, Gabe and I are back to California after a fun 5.5 weeks in Indiana and Minnesota. It was definitely hard to come back, so I made sure we had something different and fun planned over Labor Day weekend. We debated between going to Sequoia National Park or to one of the beaches. But one of the beaches we were considering was only supposed get up to the mid 60s, so that would have been a bit cool. And the others we figured would be pretty busy, since it was kind of the last weekend of summer. Plus Gabe can only handle about an hour or so of being out in the sun and water, so it would have been a hard day for him.

So we ended up at Sequoia on Saturday. It took us about 3 hours to get up there. Once there, we decided to splurge and get the national parks annual pass (we figured there are quite a few national parks around that would be doable in a day or weekend, so may as well - only have to get to 3 more in the next year to make it pay off). We hit up the information building once inside the park and then from there drove up the mountains to the Sequoia groves. The drive was only 17 miles, but took over an hour due to the steep, twisty roads and one section of one lane road that we had to wait about 20  minutes before we could go through. We found a place to park (parking was crazy, we lucked out and found an empty spot right away though) and then had a little picnic lunch. After lunch, we loaded Gabe up in the jogging stroller and then walked the path that led to "General Sherman", which is the largest tree by volume in the world. It was only a half mile walk, but it was all downhill and had lots of steps, which was a little tricky witht the stroller, but we made it work. It was a little more difficult going back up with the stroller, but we managed. The trees were massive. They are so tall that the didnt' really seem like there were as wide as they were, but they were huge. I believe General Sherman is 36.5 feet across at it's base. Crazy. It was kind of interesting - there were a TON of German tourists there. Not sure why, but it seemed every other group of people we passed was speaking German.

After we finished up there, we drove up a little further to a visitor center and gift shop. Got a few things there - including a bottle of beer for Adam from the Mammoth Brewery in Mammoth Lakes, CA. (Which after drinking, Adam has decided that we will be visiting that brewery (&town) sometime.) We also got a little "passport" book that we can get stamped at all the national parks we visit. So hopefully we will get a few more filled out in the next year. After the visitor center and gift shop, we stopped at the museum and then we decided to head back towards home. We would have liked to have seen more of the park, but it would have been a few more hours of driving to see much more, and it was already like 4:00 in the afternoon. So maybe we'll plan a weekend trip up there sometime so we can see more. We stopped for dinner at a little pizza restaurant in one of the towns outside the park - it was awesome pizza. Then we headed back home. We took a different way home, not quite as direct as the way we went, but it was more freeway driving, so ended up being quicker.

The rest of the weekend was pretty mellow. Set up Gabe's pool in the backyard so he got to 'swim' some. Did lots of laundry and picking up around the house.  

Today Gabe and I went to our first day of MOPS (mothers of preschoolers). I was in a MOPS group in Duluth and loved it, so I got signed up right away for this year out here. I think it should be a good time. I'm kind of bummed that they only have one meeting a month (Duluth had 2), but they seem to do some  other activities throughout the month, so that should be fun. They are going apple picking in a couple weeks, so hopefully it works for us to go too.

Tomorrow Gabe has a follow up appointment to check on the tubes in his ears. Unfortunately the closest pediatric ENT we could find is in L.A.  (not sure why we need to go to a pediatric ENT, and not just any ENT, but that's the name our insurance gave us, so for now I guess that's what we'll do), so we will have a lot of driving tomorrow. But we'll break it up on the way home and stop and run some errands, since we'll be near a Sam's Club, Target, and much cheaper groceries. Well I guess that's about it for now.

Below are some pictures from our day trip to Sequoia...

"Tunnel Rock" the road used to go through here, but now it swerves around it



Where's Gabe? This wasn't even one of the biggest trees



Me & Gabe. "General Sherman" is the tree on the left. It doesn't look that big in this picture, but it was a ways off. If you look close,  you can see a bunch of people around the base of the tree.



A giant pinecone. Don't remember what kind of tree it's from - not a sequoia though - there's are egg sized



Museum




Adam & Gabe. General Sherman on left



Ready to go!



Some of the views on our drive in Sequoia





This was a resevoir just outside the park - it was huge. If you look close, you can see a line going around it, just about the green grassy areas - that is how high the water can get. It was a huge difference!



Waiting to go through the one lane road