yet another camping trip, part 3

Our last day in Sequoia & King's Canyon

We decided to get up early, skip cooking breakfast and try to go see some wildlife. We hadn't seen any bears and kind of wanted to. They get up early, nap in the middle of the day and then get up again in the afternoon. Yeah, we managed to. We watched this guy for about 15 minutes. The pictures are a bit blurry because I was on super-duper zoom. We weren't all that close and that was just fine by me. At one point he noticed us, got scared & went up in a tree. Then I guess he decided we weren't going to do anything so he came back down and started foraging again.



We saw another bear from further away, but he was on the move and we didn't get to see him for long. That one had an ear tag, which means they've already caught him. They don't try to catch bears unless they've been getting aggressive, so were were perfectly happy to not see much of that one. It's a shame. When people are careless with their food, then the bears realize that it's much easier to get food that way than to forage. Then they get aggressive and sometimes end up getting killed.

petrographs at Hospital Rock

sliding on Hospital Rock

We drove out to the Mineral King section of the park. More remote, less visited. We didn't see many people at all. We pulled into a campground that was closed for the season thinking we might picnic there. Then we saw this guy and changed our plans.

After Mineral King, we stopped in town to get gas & ice and use the library and the phone. We didn't have much cell signal in the park. Mike used the internet to find a mechanic and a hotel in Fresno so we could get the air conditioning on the Escape fixed. What's a Gilbert family vacation without a little car work? Mike used the internet, Thomas skimmed through several non-fiction titles. I flipped through magazines. When we left, the librarian let Thomas pick a book out of their give-away box. Very kind of her since he had already finished the books we packed with us.

goofing around at Tunnel Rock

atop Tunnel Rock

We went back into the park for one last hike before we headed to Fresno for a hotel and car repairs. We chose Crescent Meadow.

This was officially off the trail, but it was really hard to resist walking on the log that went across the entire meadow.

chimney tree

This reminded me of a scene in that movie First Knight with Richard Gere and Julia Ormond, where they hide under the ferns in the forest.

We headed to Fresno with no a/c, checked into our hotel, cleaned up & cooled off. Then we went to dinner and to Target. Mike got a car charger for his cell phone, Thomas got a new book, having finished the one the librarian gave him that day. Me? I got a razor so I could shave without having to unload the entire car to find the one I had packed.

yet another camping trip, part 2

Second full day in Sequoia and King's Canyon

We went to Boyden Cavern. Crystal Caverns was closed due to the forest fire. We hiked around Zumwalt Meadows and then to Roaring River Falls.

King's River

Grand Sentinel, I think

walk softly and carry a big stick

Roaring River Falls

And yes, more macro shots:

yet another camping trip, part 1

Sequoia & King's Canyon 9/20-9/23

Okay, here's the drill. We camped, we hiked, I took eleventy bazillion pictures, Thomas got Junior Ranger badges and there was car trouble. There was a forest fire. It was cool. Well, all except the car trouble & the fire. I won't re-cap in excruciating detail. Here's a bunch of photos from our first full day in the park.

looking up at the Parker group of Giant Sequoias

a sugar pine cone and a giant sequoia cone - the smaller one is the giant sequoia.

I wish this wasn't blurry, because it was supposed to be kind of a cool shot.

the Escape going through tunnel log

in front of Buttress log

on top of Buttress log

mommy's little sniper

Thomas kept 'shooting' with his stick at all the cars that drove by the log.

We saw squirrels all over eating & hiding these green pine cones. I have no idea what kind they are. Pardon my minor obsession with the pine cones. This isn't the last you'll see of it.

view of Moro Rock

sugar pine cone

sugar pine cone

At least I warned you I was obsessed.

goofing around on Auto Log

Thomas hanging out in Auto Log

more goofing on Auto log

vacation re-cap days 8-10

Day 8 we broke camp, packed the overloaded Taurus (who knew that it would be our last trip in the old girl?) and drove to Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho. Wondering why they call it Craters of the Moon?

Yeah. That's why.

So those are the lava flows, there's a huge cinder cone there and not much else. Not many trees. It's just kind of stark. We arrived in time to start setting up camp & then Mike had to finish on his own because Thomas and I went to the Junior Ranger program. The rangers who put it on were relatively young and pretty passionate about what they do. The guy told about how it was his dream to be a ranger since he went to his first national park as a kid. Really, these people are unsung heroes. They don't make much money, the parks are usually remote so they normally live in pretty crappy on-site housing. They have to love what they do and really have a passion for it.

After the Junior Ranger program, we ate dinner and decided to go to the nighttime program. I turned out to be this couple who had taken a year off, bought a VW campervan, custom painted it with the American Flag and traveled to every single national park -- including Alaska and Hawaii. They gave a little talk and showed a video that was basically a montage of their photos and a whole lotta "This Land is Your Land." It made my inner hippie tear up a little.

The park is in the middle of nowhere. Actually, I think it's several miles from Nowhere. There isn't even the typical right-outside-the-park collection of grocery store, gas station & old motel that you normally find. That combined with there being no big trees to speak of made for the best stargazing ever. I've never seen so many stars. Mike had trouble picking out constellations because there were so many stars. It was crazy. Almost a little disorienting. Mike left the fly off the tent because it was a warm night, especially compared to the nights in Yellowstone & Glacier that we had gotten used to. The top of our tent in mesh, so we fell asleep staring up at the stars until our eyes just couldn't stay open any longer.

In the morning we broke camp and did a little hiking to the lava caves. Thomas loves him some caves and had been really looking forward to that part.

Then it was time to leave. We headed south through Idaho and were planning on making it back home late that night. Until we had a tire blow out 30 minutes south of Pocatello, ID.

At 6 pm on a Sunday evening, no tire store was open, so after we had the car towed someplace, we had the driver drop us at a nearby Rodeway Inn. I'm going to tell you that although my standards for a hotel were pretty low after having been camping for several nights . . . they weren't that low. The place was actually clean, just really old and very poorly maintained - sloppy painting; an air conditioner unit that, although it worked and blew cool air, was undersized and just couldn't cool the room; carpet that wasn't *quite* wall-to-wall - yes, the carpet was like an inch too small on one side of the room. The place was just odd. But it didn't have bedbugs, the bathroom was clean and well, we weren't in a position to be too picky.

Monday Mike got up and was at the tire store before they opened. Got both rear tires replaced & we headed home. A day late, several dollars shorter than planned.

prepare for video onslaught

Okay, now that I figured out how to do it, prepare for lots of youtube reposts. Most of them will be goofy stuff I think is funny. But this first one is important to me. It's the APFED (American Partnership for Eosinophilic Disorders - see why we just say APFED?) video from 2007. Thomas makes his appearance around 2:05 and his doctor is at 2:49. APFED is an organization that provides funding for research, advocates for diagnostic codes for eosinophilic disorders, patient & physician education.

funny video

Thanks to Carrie for sharing. It's high-larious (but not very kid-friendly, so watch it after the kiddos are in bed).

Take On Me - the literal version

vacation re-cap day 7

Our last day at Glacier. Once we finished breakfast & clean-up we headed out on the Going-to-the-Sun Road. Visited Logan Pass and other scenic stops I wish I remembered the names of. Seriously, people, it's been a month and a half since the trip. It gets kind of fuzzy up in my head after awhile.

Wild Goose Island

Jackson Glacier

view from Logan Pass

fearless ground squirrels at Logan Pass

witch's butter

I became mildly obsessed with the macro function of the camera. Glacier is just breathtaking. It's in the huge vistas, but it's also in the details. Indulge me for a minute:

After we finished up the Going-to-the-Sun Road, we drove out to Two Medicine Lake. We took a hike out to Running Eagle Falls and then a boat ride across the lake.

A baby bird we saw out in the middle of the trail. He was calling to his mama and we heard her answering. Hope he made it back to the nest safely.

Mike & Thomas at Running Eagle Falls

This started off as a rock skipping lesson and quickly deteriorated into straight up hurling rocks into the water for maximum distance and splash.

more rock hurling while waiting for the boat

After the boat tour, we found a picnic area with a fire pit and prepared supper. Salmon with leeks & zucchini in the Dutch oven (thanks, Kamas!). We finished up just in time to go to the campfire program. It was entitled "An Evening with an Old Goat". We weren't quite sure what we were in for when we decided to go, but the lady working the entrance booth at Two Med sure was excited, telling us we would really enjoy it. We thought maybe a Native American was going to be story telling or something. Oh no. They meant "old goat" almost literally.

Pat Hagan - the old goat

This was the best campfire program I've ever been to. Pat Hagan is a seasonal naturalist ranger in the summer at Glacier and has been for over 20 years. He, apparently, can't get enough. He wrote a book about Glacier, Seasonal Disorder, which he claims is what he gets the 3 seasons he is not in the park. The man is passionate about this place and it shows. For this particular program, he did a striptease, complete with music, from his ranger uniform to a goat costume. He proceeded to tell about the life cycle, adaptations, etc. of the mountain goat. It was highly entertaining and informative. Much more interesting than the usual "millions of years" talk we normally get. He had people who came to the program specifically to hear him, not just for any old ranger program. There was a grown woman with a Junior Ranger guide for him to sign. Dare I say it came off a little groupie-ish? When we turned in Thomas's Junior Ranger book the next day, the young woman who checked it said in a rather dreamy voice "Oh, I see you had Pat Hagan." Ranger Hagan is a Glacier National Park rock star. I don't know if you ever google yourself, but if you ever see this -- Hat's off to you, Ranger Hagan!

the last bit of light over Two Medicine Lake on our last night at Glacier

Of all the places we've been, it's my favorite. I can understand why Ranger Hagan does what he does.