Sunday, Aug. 1-Monday, Aug. 2

Sunday we were up early and took the park shuttle to Moro Rock trail. It’s a 3-mile round trip hike through the Giant Forest. It was shady and relatively cool and all uphill. We made it to Moro Rock only to learn that a) we now had 500 steps up to the top of the rock and b) the shuttle bus would’ve taken us to the base of the rock. But the journey is half the battle, right?

Casey and I made it to the top (the other 3/5 made it about halfway and then turned around) and were rewarded with truly stupendous views. And some pretty low guardrails. I also came this close to losing my water bottle down the mountain when it slipped out of my backpack. Crisis averted when it got stuck on the lip of a rock.

We took the shuttle down and stopped at Crescent Meadow, the “gem of Sequoia,” acccording to John Muir. The goal was to find Tharp’s Log, a cabin that some guy named Tharp, the first non-Native American to enter the Giant Forest, carved out of a fallen sequoia in the 1800s when he was herding cattle. We didn’t make it there because a bear was also on the same journey. He was moseying around and generally blocking our path. Ron, Casey and I were game to wait out the bear, but the girls completely freaked and ran back the other way. We took the shuttle the rest of the way back down, and Ron and I did the Tall Tree Trail while the kids sat in the shade and just relaxed.

The area we were in is called Giant Forest and there is a Giant Forest Museum (closed due to Covid) and there are signs around telling you where you are. For ‘The Princess Bride” fans out there, I kept thinking the Giant Forest would be home to The Rodents of Unusual Size but I never did see them. We did, however, encounter a traffic jam of cuteness when a mom bear and her two cubs crossed the road and tied up cars for a bit.

We went back to the campground mid-afternoon and had to change our plans. I needed WiFi to do some work and we needed water in the RV (we were at a no hook-up site) and to empty the tanks, and the site at our campground was closed. So no showers, dishes, tooth brushing were possible without filling up. The hitch? The closest station was an hour drive away. So we loaded up and headed that way, stopping on the way for a brief stop at a lodge to mail a postcard for Ally’s friend and buy a poster (the National Park Service sells vintage-style posters for each national park and I’ve been collecting them), and a stamp for Casey’s national park passport.

We made it to the water/dump station, which was at a national forest campground. They had an opening so we decided to stay there for the night, saving us an hour drive back. The beauty of an RV is the flexibility. We also were closer to another area of giant trees and so checked out the General Grant Tree and more giant trees. It’s hard to explain the giantness without seeing them in person honestly. We also had another run-in with nature when a sweet, innocent mule deer jumped the fence onto the tree path, and Mallory ran like a zombie was on her tail. The deer looked as confused as I was about her reaction.

Then we drove a little farther into Kings Canyon to Hume Lake. The kids swam and we planned to eat dinner at a cafe there but they were not serving hot food so we took off and headed to a lodge in Kings Canyon where we got a quick bite and finally found some very elusive WiFi. We can put a man on the moon but can’t get WiFi in a forest.

Another benefit of our changed plans was that our early evening sightseeing was a lack of people. And then on the 20-minute drive back to our new campground we also got the absolute best sunset over the mountains and not a crowd to be seen.

The campground we moved to was super peaceful, and we slept until around 7 before we left for more exploring of Kings Canyon. There was not universal support for any hikes. I believe the response was “No. Nope. Do we have to?” And the kids didn’t want to either. So we stuck to quick road stops and picture taking.

After that it was a long drive to Yosemite via Fresno. We stopped at a Target to get a few more groceries and someone in the parking lot asked us if we wanted the puppy they were carrying. I’ve been to Target a lot of times in my life but that was a first. If it were up to Casey, we would be the proud new owners of a baby chihuahua.