Our Las Vegas Area Adventure

From the foothills of the Sequoia's and through the orchards has been my favorite area so far. Although the rocky cliffs and dry rock formations are beautiful, as well as the ocean front, the beautiful green mountainous area wins out. From the Sequoia's we went south around the mountain range and into the southern tip of Nevada. We were planning to head around Las Vegas and down to the Hoover Dam.

While heading toward the border, we saw huge plains of nothing but white. It was definitely NOT snow. It was way to hot for that. We've come to the conclusion that it must be some "salt flats". Nothing was growing there. It was just hot and dry and white. We were just south of Death Valley.

Right before the Nevada border, we saw some wind surfers (like go-carts with sails). We also saw signs that advertised selling rocket fuel at the gas stations. Apparently this flat ground is a big drag racing area.

It was sooooo windy in this area that we had to hang onto our car doors with all our might when getting out. We managed to get a picture of Larson Lane, but poor Caleb looked like he was getting blown away.

We headed around Las Vegas and drove over the Hoover Dam into Arizona and then walked back over it. When Paul was in college, he and a friend took a similar route during a spring break trip from Rapid City, SD. They went to Salt Lake City, the Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon, Four Corners and made their way back. You can tell they were "Engineers" because both of them had nice cars (one was a Thunderbird and the other was a Mustang), but they chose to drive his friend's dad's Grand Marque. Imagine that, two college kids giving up their cool cars to drive a grandpa car! To make that choice, you'd have to be older and wiser, or.... an engineer.

The dam is HUGE and amazing. They say that although it was completed in 1936, the concrete in the middle has still not cured!

They are in the process of completing a bridge that goes past the dam partly to avoid the traffic on the dam, and to see it from a better view instead of on top of it. (Note to self: do not come back... Paul would insist on driving over that bridge and from the dam (which is incredibly high itself), the bridge was waaaay higher. I'm sure the view would be grand, but it would really freak me out and I wouldn't look over the edge anyhow!)

Below is the lake side of the dam... you can see how low the water level is by the ring of white rocks around the lower part of the mountain. I guess it is getting to be a major problem. With the population growth in the area, the water supply is not able to keep up with the usage and is continually dropping. It's getting to be worrisome that the level will get below the "intake structures". That's "Paul-talk" for where the water goes in to the dam to generate electricity.

We got to the dam right before sunset, and by the time we were done and were heading to our camp destination (which was still an hour and a half away), it was getting pretty dark. We followed the GPS for a while and it took us through a deserted area near Lake Mead. After a bit, and still at least an hour from Valley of Fire State Park (our destination for the night), we decided it might be wise to stay at a hotel in North Las Vegas. I found a Holiday Inn & Suites on the internet and plugged it into the GPS. After going through some mountains on our way back down to the interstate, the sight we saw made the detour well worth it. I wish I would've gotten a picture looking down on all the lights of the entire Vegas valley! It was incredible!

We continued to follow the GPS... It took us past the Nellis Airforce Base, through an industrial park, past a correction center, and told us we had arrived at our hotel in the middle of the desert. Hmmm, good thing the lights of Las Vegas are so bright. Though the roads were dark, we could find our way toward the city by following the glow. We were most worried about seeing some night sights that nobody (especially children) should see. Glad to say... we didn't. After being in the car for about 12 hours, we found our own way to the hotel, went for an outdoor swim in the heated pool, dropped on our beds and didn't move a muscle until 7am. Ahhhhh...

Driving through CA and our campground

On our drive to our campground near the Sequoia National Forest, we passed thousands of acres of grape vines and ripe citrus trees!

We bought 8 pounds of fresh California strawberries from a man on the side of the road for $10, then a bit later we stopped at a fruit stand and bought 5 pounds of fresh clementines, 4 huge grapefruit, and about 40 lbs of oranges (all for about $18!!).

Once we got to the camp, we had 2 choices...

Plant our camper in "RV town" where the awnings of the campers practically touched their neighbors, or....

... set up camp near the river surrounded by scenic, grassy foothills without a neighbor around.

Hmmmm, hard choice. But, beauty doesn't come without a price... like no electricity or water (hook-ups). The water was taken care of. We had as much water we wanted to haul for cleaning and washing, but the electricity supplied our heat. From our experience, the mountain area gets sunny and warm during the day, but gets quite chilly at night. Nathan was the only one I was concerned about, but when he woke up in the night because he was chilly, we pulled him into bed with us. After being serenaded by his daddy (we normally play music during the night for him), he fell back asleep and slept like a baby... a kicking and squirming baby (which is not conducive to sleeping with adults). Other than that, we enjoyed our camping area immensely! Our campgrounds keep getting better.

The oranges and strawberries were delicious!! We had just run out of fruit that we brought from home, so we had found them at just the right time!

It was warm enough in the foothills of the mountains for Nathan to have fun playing with some crystal clear river water.

The first night at this park, we got in around 4pm (on Sunday) and the park office was closed. We weren't sure where to buy some firewood and it was getting late after we set up camp, so we walked all around the park picking up sticks. The kids had a pretty good pile by the time we were done... Enough to cook dinner and s'mores...

The Sequoia National Park

We spend most of the day at the Sequoia National Park. It was a gorgeous drive! From the foothills to the uppermost peaks was about 8000 feet up or a 2 hour twisting and turning road (if you don't stop). Needless to say, we didn't make it all the way up. We went up about halfway taking scenic stops along the way.

We found a beautiful trail up a ravine with melted snow making a creek down the middle. If we didn't have Nathan sleeping in the van, I would've liked to take the hike much farther than we did.

As we made our way up into the Sierra Mountain Range, we could feel the air gradually get cooler. We also started seeing more and more snow. Some of the side roads were still closed because they were still snow covered. As we made it up to the GIANT Forest, there was quite a bit of the white stuff.

Most of the snow was so compacted that we could walk right on top of it. Seth found a place where it he could stick his leg in. He wasn't sure if he was even touching the ground.

The Giant Forest was properly named because of the HUGE Sequoia Trees. They were sooo beautiful and they almost seemed unreal in their sizes. It looked like we were transported into an episode of some Star Wars movie...

Here is Gracie with her trees... THE THREE GRACES (as the three trees in the photo were named.) The three of them are supposedly all the same age and make a "graceful grouping".

GENERAL SHERMAN'S TREE

... and onto the main event... THE WORLD'S LARGEST TREE! It's hard to imagine that they've looked throughout the whole world and declared the largest tree to be right here in the middle of this forest, yet, looking at it's size, it's not hard to imagine that this IS the largest tree in the world (based on it's diameter- 36.5 feet). There is a (slightly) smaller tree somewhere in this park that has a hole big enough to drive through, but they informed us that unless we're able to drive through 6 feet of snow, we can't even get close to it.

We need a much bigger family to join hands 'round THIS tree...

Day 8 & 9: California!!

On Friday, we headed west again with the Pacific coast as our goal...

I couldn't believe how mountainous it was all the way to the coast! As we crossed over from one of the flat areas in between the mountains, there were windmills. There had to be thousands of them surrounding us, catching the gusts between the mountain ranges. It looked like a picture from a sci-fi movie. Weird.

As we crossed into California, one of the "Hundred Mile Treats" was cheap dollar store sunglasses. They made for a cute picture, but most of them broke during the rest of the day's drive.

Somewhat by accident (only because our GPS took us a weird way through the suburb neighborhoods near Los Angeles), we happened upon Saddleback Church where Rick Warren is the head pastor.... that was kinda cool. Then I thought, we ARE weird. Most people look for famous movie stars near LA, we look for churches... hmmmm

We've been able to have campfires just about every night. And what is a campfire without s'mores and pudgy-pies. Obviously, Gracie hasn't adjusted to staying up late. She's fallen asleep a couple times with chocolate all over her face after enjoying her s'more.

We arrived at San Mateo State Park on the south side of San Clemente, CA. It was a great campground. We were actually separated from the neighbors by trees and bushes! When we got in, we just spent the evening cooking dinner and hanging around the campfire. Because it was such a nice camp, we decided we'd like to stay the next night too. Paul went to let them know, but they said that our site was already reserved for the next night. So, whether we stayed or not, we'd have to pack up our camp and move, and because it was going to be Saturday night, they would have a lottery for the open sites. Paul went down the next morning to get in the drawing and was picked for another site. Yay... but we had to pack everything up to set everything up again fifty feet away. Ahhh, well, the joys of camping...

The next day, we went to the beach!! We walked about a mile down a trail, past a no trespassing sign (that's the path we were instructed), over some railroad tracks, and onto San Onofre Beach (one of the most popular surfing beaches on the CA coast).

The waves were huge, and the water was freezing cold, but it was soooooo much fun!

As we were walking to the beach, we saw bunches of surfer dudes riding their bikes or skateboarding with their surfboards in tow. It was exciting to watch them "ride the waves" and wipe-out.

Nathan wasn't so thrilled with the cold water. He stuck to throwing sand onto our towels as soon as we shook them off.

The boys had a blast jumping the big waves, while the girls looked for pretty rocks and shells, and outran the waves as they washed up on the sandbar.

We even found a dead baby lobster (or whatever it was) up on the beach. Seth was brave enough to hold it for a picture.

Today, Day 10 of our vacation, is our 12th Anniversary. We are going to spend it travelling to a campground near the Sequoia National Forest. It's only a "short" 5 hour drive which is usually more like 7 for us)!!