General Sherman in Sequoia

We woke up this morning surrounded by trees and wildlife.  Kind of.  We were inside a building still.  Hotel room nights are never quite as nice as the condo, where we can send our kids to their own room and we can actually get some sleep.  But it was fun to be in the middle of Sequoia to start our day.

Many of the areas we wanted to explore we closed for maintenance, but there was still plenty to see.  We got tickets for an afternoon tour through Crystal Cave.  Our kids were very excited since they have never been in a cave deeper than 10 feet.  We then headed out on the shuttle bus to explore the Sherman Tree area.  The Sherman Tree is the largest tree in the world.  It is debated if it is the largest living thing on earth, since it contains mostly dead wood.  The living wood is only on the outside.  But regardless, it is massive.

This graphic show some interesting comparisons of the tree width and people.  The branches are thicker than a person is tall.

 

The family in front of the General Sherman tree.

The kids had a lot of fun climbing around in the trees.

Cydnee saw a family doing this on a map book and thought it made a great shot.  Can't even make it half way around the tree.  Time to have more kids!

The base of another small, still living, burned out Sequoia.

Another Sequoia cross section for perspective.

Here is the General Sherman tree from a distance where you can see the whole tree.  Can you see all of those ants, ur, I mean people, at the base of the tree?  You might have to zoom in.

The kids even found some rocks to climb around on.  Taylor can't pass up any rock climbing opportunities.

After our hike, we ate at the lodge and then headed down to Crystal Cave.  After a long drive and getting ready for the hike to the cave, the ranger came to tell us the cave was closed due to a fire.  Disappointed, we headed back to the visitors center to trade our tickets in for some souvenirs instead.  Sequoia was a very fascinating park, and the only disappointing thing was that so many of the things we had looked forward to were closed.

We left Sequoia and headed to Bakersfield for the evening.  We ate Sushi (Cydnee's favorite food) and relaxed in the pool.