We left Gana’s house around 11 on Saturday. Our destination was Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada. Our route was ‘the loneliest highway in America’. It was by far our longest drive of the trip, 8 hours with no midpoint destinations. But, of course, we made a few stops. We were not expecting much. We had mentally interpreted “loneliest highway” as “boringest highway” and thought it was going to be 8 hours of unchanging desert.

We can not make a trip to the state of California without finding a way to visit Scott’s Nana. Even though California is a big state, and being in California does not necessarily equate being in Nana’s neighborhood. Compared to the east coast, anywhere in California is MUCH, MUCH closer to Nana’s than normal. So, we knew our trip to California, MUST include a visit at Nana’s (or as the kids call her Gana for G reat N ana ).

I love big cities. D.C., New York City, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Philadelphia… So, it probably doesn’t surprise anyone, Scott included, that when I was plotting our road trip from Pinnacles NP to his Nana’s north of Sacramento, I insisted we “swing by San Francisco” for lunch on our way. It was an hour drive out of the way (plus whatever time we spent in the city) but I really, really wanted to do it.

During our trek across California, we wanted to also make time to see some of Scott’s family that live here. Scott’s aunt, uncle, and his cousin and her family live a few hours from Pinnacles National Park and graciously offered to meet us there and spend time with us at the park. We met at a restaurant called Togo’s… we had never heard of it before, but Scott’s cousin described it as “like subway only better.

Scott had been hoping for us to take a hike down from Glacier Point to Yosemite Valley. It would be our longest hike, but it would have been all down hill and we would pass both Nevada and Vernal Falls. Given our kids fascination with water falls, this seemed like a fun hike. Unfortunately, we learned too late that there was no shuttle from Yosemite Valley to Glacier Point, and the only way we could do this plan was if we had pre purchased tickets for a special shuttle that left early in the morning.

Scott and I visited Yosemite 14 years ago during our trip which shaped all trips. Therefore, it wasn’t a must see for this vacation. And when Scott and I were first plotting out this trip, we kind of waivered as to whether we wanted to include it or not. But, we decided that since Yosemite is one of the quintessential parks and since we were were were going to be SO CLOSE, we owed it to the kids to show them Yosemite.

Our campground was located pretty much on the border of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. We woke slowly and had a leisurely breakfast, then headed out to see Kings Canyon. As we approached the visitor center, we saw a sign for a church service in the park. We were only 5 minutes late so we ran down to join them in worship. It was pretty neat to be able to join with other believers in worship, right there in the midst of God’s creation.

We arrived at Sequoia National Park around 2:00. We had a picnic lunch, stopped by the Visitors Center and headed off to find some big trees. We took a 4 mile hike in the late afternoon, that as of this point, goes down as my favorite hike of the trip. We started in the populous area of the infamous General Sherman. Then we hiked the Congress Trail.

After our morning at the beach, we were headed north west to prepare for the next leg of our trip. But before heading to 4 more National Parks, we were in need of hot showers, soft beds, and a washing machine. Enter, Best Western. We hadn’t booked a hotel in advance because we weren’t exactly sure how far we’d want to drive on Friday… we knew we wanted to get close to Sequoia National Park.

Since marine life is part of Channel Islands National park, we woke up at 5:30am so we could visit some nearby tide pools while it was low tide. The kids didn’t seem to mind too much though, because the promise of seeing “cool things” was all it took to get them up and at it. Even our late sleeper had a smile on his face.