Moro Rock, General Sherman, Congress Trail, Sequoia National Park, Musical Road, Bakersfield, San Diego, Mission Beach, Vacation Day 4, 5

The next day we visited Sequoia National Park.  We had to stop by the sign to get a picture:

We still were amazed at the size of the trees/roots!  Here’s a fallen tree’s roots.  They were massive!

We stopped by Tunnel Log and got a few pictures:

I even drove the van through while Josh, Daniel, Noah were on top of the log and Sarah was standing at the sign:

Daniel also showed me his ’smolder’ look.  I told him he may want to work on that or at least take some Mirilax to help--haha!

We did stop by the tree called General Sherman.  It is the world’s largest tree by volume.  It is 275 feet tall and over 36 feet in diameter at the base.  The stone tiles we are standing on show the diameter of the tree:
 

The picture doesn’t do the tree justice.  It was really big!!

After seeing General Sherman we went on the 3 mile trail called the Congress Trail.  On the way we ran into a deer.  It was crazy because this was the first time we had seen any wildlife on this trip.  The deer didn’t even care we were so close to him.

The trees along the trail were so big and a lot of them had survived multiple fires and were still living.  That seems crazy to me, but so interesting!  This tree was split and burned all on the inside, but was still alive and massive:

Some of the trunks had holes through them you could walk inside:

There were a few fallen trees along the trail with tunnels cut through so you could stay on the trail:

This tree we still didn’t even come close to making it half way around with all of us holding hands:

On the Congress trail there were different groupings or copse of trees.  This one was named The Senate:

Here’s what the Senate looked like from the inside of the circle looking up:

The grouping of trees was called The House:

There was a tree entitled The President, but we didn’t get a picture of that one.

Again the tree roots were huge:

A lot of the trees had survived multiple fires, but were still alive.  Like this tree:

At the end of the trail there was a cross section piece of a tree:

After the Congress Trail we then went on the Big Trees Trail.  Sarah and Aaron did stop for a rest and I loved this picture:

We then did the Crescent Meadow loop trail where we linked up with the Hazelwood Nature Trail.

We finished off the day by hiking up the Moro Rock Trail. This trail is a granite dome that you hike up over 350 stairs to get to the top.  Once at the top you have a 360 degree view of the entire Sequoia Park.  It did have some steep drop offs on the way up which made a few of us just a bit nervous, but we made it.  Here’s the beginning of the trail:

Here’s higher up on the trail with some nice steep drop offs on both sides:

We made it to the top and the views were amazing. 

Sarah did not want to be at the top because she was scared of the height.  She begged me to walk back down with her within a few minutes of being on the top.  I went back down with her because she was so scared.  On our way back down:

Aaron and Noah made it to the top:

At the top was a narrow walk way you could walk down to see the views:

After Moro Rock we then drove out of Sequoia and down into Bakersfield to spend the night on our way down to San Diego.  On the way there were so many orange tree orchards on the side of the road as we drove.  I did stop by to check it out because I was fascinated by them.  This is what they looked like close up:

While we were on the road we did get a call from our neighbor saying our sprinklers were malfunctioning and had flooded their backyard--DOH!!  Aaron tried to see what the problem was, but we were in a very poor cell service area.  When we got back into a good cell service area a few hours later Aaron found out that our neighbor had rebuilt our garden drip system however, it still was not working right.  Their kids were kind enough to water our garden by hand until we got back home.  I am so grateful!!  

Also on the way down to San Diego we stopped by the Musical Road found in Lancaster, California.  Some engineers made the rumble strips on the highway play the William Tell Overature when you drive over them at 55 miles per hour.  Don’t pay attention to our dirty windshield, but this is what it sounded like when we drove over it.:

We drove over it three different times just for fun.  It was pretty cool!

We made it in to San Diego the next evening.  On our way we did drive by the San Diego Temple:

We got an AirB&B right on Mission Beach.  However, we didn’t realize that getting such a great location meant that parking was going to be absolutely horrid!!  We were only allotted one parking spot in a single car garage that was located down a very narrow alleyway.  The only way to access the garage was by backing into it.  We didn’t know this until we went to find our parking spot and then realization set in.  Holy cow I think Aaron and I may need couples counseling after trying to work together to fit into that parking spot--haha!  It took both of us and two neighbors to help us get into the garage without hitting anything too valuable.  This is how tight the spot was:

I am pulling into the garage trying not to swing wide to hit the white car in front of me as well as trying not to hit either side of the van on the sides of the garage.  Thankfully, Aaron and I are still happily married and I figured out how to maneuver into the spot after practicing for a few minutes later on that evening.  I was super grateful for Aaron who was my spotter in front every time I had to park and for a back up camera, though!!!

We had enough time to check in to our AirB&B and then go for a walk/short swim on the beach.  It was crazy to go from a daytime temperature in Fresno of 112-115 degrees down to a daily high temperature of 72 in San Diego!

The water and outdoor temperature was a bit chilly:

Our AirB&B was right on Mission Beach in San Diego.  It was an amazing location.  The next morning Aaron and I got up early to walk on the beach for a few minutes.  It was great!!