Yosemite, King's Canyon, Sequoia- Part 2

On our second day of vacation, we drove down to King's Canyon and Sequoia National Parks.  They are about 2.5 hours from Yosemite, so we just went for the day.  

 The world's largest tree (in volume) is at Sequoia and it's called General Sherman.  The sequoia trees are much bigger around than the coastal redwoods, but the coastal redwoods are usually taller.

 We climbed to the top of Moro Rock in Sequoia.  You can see the snow-capped Sierras behind us.

 They have a cave in Sequoia called Crystal Cave.  It was neat!  You can take 45 minute tours.

 This is our hotel in Yosemite- The Wawona.  This is the main building where we stayed, it was built in 1879.  There's no TVs, radios, or telephones!

 We hiked up to Taft Point in Yosemite.

 Sara was brave and got close to the edge.

 Ryan was not so brave, and had to crawl on his belly to peek over the edge.

 Beautiful Half Dome and Vernal and Nevada Falls

 We took the Mist Trail and hiked 2 miles straight up to Vernal Falls.  We were soaked by all of the mist!

 Made it to the top!

 Misty!

 Rainbow at Vernal Falls on our hike back down.

Our squirrel friend :)

Eliza would like to show you a trick!

Yosemite- Part 1

Yosemite was absolutely gorgeous.  It definitely lived up to the reputation!  Our hotel was in the park, but outside of Yosemite Valley so our first view of the valley was at "Tunnel View".  You drive through a long tunnel in the side of the mountain and this is what you see.  Breathtaking!  

 Our first stop was Bridalveil Falls.

 The water was really rushing from all the snow melt!

 The floor of the valley has beautiful green meadows.  The valley itself is only 1 mile across and about 2 miles long, so you really feel the granite peaks surrounding you.

 All of the buildings in the valley are hidden amongst the trees.  Looking into the valley you'd have no idea that there are hiking trails and hotels below.  There's really only 2 hotels, Curry Village, a few campgrounds, and some other businesses in Yosemite village.  This is the Ahwahnee Hotel (pricey!) where we had lunch one day.  It was very nice!

 Half Dome!  We could not have asked for better weather, it was absolutely perfect, mid 70s and low 80s during the day and 50s at night.

 Upper Yosemite Falls

 Lower Yosemite Falls

 Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls combine and run into a river in the valley.  Pictures do not do it justice, it's so hard to capture the scale!  This is actually the highest waterfall in North America.

 This was a beautiful meadow, with a view across to Yosemite Falls.

 Looking for rock climbers on El Capitan!  We did see some people almost at the top!

 The valley

10 more days of school!

Might be slightly excited about that.  :)  Here are some goodies of Calvin.

 Calvin's a wizard!

 I think he's a bit confused about how school buses work.  Can you tell he got his 2nd hair cut on Sunday?

growing chicks

Triathlon and Ridiculous Obstacle Challenge

The past two weekends Ryan has taken part in both a triathlon and a 5k called the Ridiculous Obstacle Challenge.  The triathlon (500m swim, 13 mile bike, 5k run) was in Mission Bay and Fiesta Island.

The Ridiculous Obstacle Challenge was in Del Mar and it was like a 5k with Wipeout style obstacles.  There were barriers they had to jump over, bouncy castles, a giant slide, and tons more really funny things to do.  The video below is of the second to last obstacle- you had to run across barrels in a pool of water while those giant red balls were swinging around.  Hardly any of the runners could make it across, it looked really hard!

Here's the team: The Del Martians.  The team was started by our neighbors.  They wore green tutus and antennas.  

Halloween in May!

Rediscovered this Cookie Monster costume while organizing baby clothes.  It'll be too small by Halloween, so he wore it today!