About a month ago my youngest asked when we would see the Statue of Liberty again. We visited it a few years ago on our way to our Boston Vacation, and it has been a highlight memory of our youngest child ever since. He loves when we spot it on tv or in a picture somewhere. I replied, “Probably the next time we go to New York City.” To which he of course replied, “When can we go to New York City again?
We’ve been home two and a half weeks and I am finally taking time to record the moments of our last day of vacation…. this is proof positive that I am glad I took the time to record our memories while on vacation b/c there is no way I could have gone back and done it once home.
We woke up QUITE cold on our last full day of vacation at Great Basin National Park.
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.