our trip

we went on a big trip two weeks ago to california. we planned on doing more of the northern coast, but planned WAY TOO MUCH. we had to go out to ontario for a scrapbook expo, so we made a fun trip out of it. we went to ontario to sequoia national forest, to yosemite, to mammoth, then home. lots of driving, but very fun.

these are in the sequoia national park, which was awesome. i couldn't believe the sizes of the trees, they felt prehistoric almost. some of them were 2,000 years old. these pictures don't do them justice

we were alone in the park too, it's their off season, so, literally, we were alone. it was kind of creepy camping that night, because, we knew if we heard something, it wasn't the other campers!

these were taken on the "trail of a hundred giants"

 

next stop was yosemite, which jack had never been to. we could have stayed a week there. there is so much to see and they have a village there, with an awesome grocery store, a few places to eat, restaurants  and delis. there are a ton of places to camp and stay. we didn't stay in the park though because, they were having a huge hauntavirus outbreak, and we didn't feel like puking and having the diarrheas. we stayed in the coolest town named oakhurst. i would recommend it for sure. it's just outside of yosemite, and we stayed in a great hotel.

 this is oakhurst, not a great example of it though. it reminded me of the town from the movie "roxanne"

 this is half dome and el capitan. el capitan is one of the best places to rock climb in the world.

this was the waterfall we hiked to, and we found a secret little area really close to it. there were some hippie kids there, so, of course, jack had to jump in and prove he was still young to all of them.

 our buddy eating our cheese and tortilla chips

 this waterfall, in the summer, is so much bigger. again, we went in the off season

 these are from another hike we did in yosemite, it had the best 360 degree view of the whole park.

it was so windy, which made it so much more dramatic.

 this is right in front of el capitan, we had lunch here and was sitting next to two climbers that just finished climbing it. they were up there for 7 days, sleeping in cots hanging off the side of the rock, AND they lost half of their food on the first night. they were badasses, but that could not sound less appealing to me or jack.

this cool area is on the northeastern way out of yosemite.

 

these were aspens in mammoth.