Our 7th day of vacation was a busy one. We had a lot of sight-seeing and a lot of driving to do. In order to fit everything in, we made sure we were up early so that we could be on the first shuttle bus to the Giant Forest Museum.
This one was obsessed with hiking sticks. LOL
This one was obsessed with maps. LOL
Waiting for the shuttle
The shuttles were like full-size city buses. God bless those drivers. I thought we were going to roll over or die about 93 times that day. LOL
Sequoia, Kings Canyon, and Yosemite were a dream come true to Matthew. So much to climb on. LOL
Right outside the Giant Forest Museum is the Sentinel tree. It is an average sized sequoia but is still absolutely enormous.
“If you think the giant tree in front of you is big, in one sense you are right. The Sentinel, a 2,200-year-old sequoia, is a monster – compared to most trees. But in this land of giants, the Sentinel is just average. In the grove of sequoias that surrounds you, some trees are nearly twice as large as the Sentinel. At 700 tons, the Sentinel Tree weighs more than two fully loaded jumbo jet airplanes – yet it is still just an average sequoia tree. Sequoias are the world’s largest trees, due to the volume of their trunks. Other trees grow taller or have greater width, but none has greater volume.” On the right side, they compare the Sentinel with the largest known sequoia, the General Sherman Tree (40 ft wide, 311 ft tall, weighing 1,385 tons, and 3,200 years old).
How is that for an “average” sequoia tree?
The white line on the ground indicated both the width and height of the Sentinel. The trees are so big that it is a little hard to wrap your head around their enormous size even when you’re standing in front of it. Seeing the white line really kind of blows your mind.
After that we explored the Giant Forest Museum a little bit.
This was a great tool to help us understand just how big the trees are compared to other large objects: cypress tree, space shuttle, blue whale, the Titanic, a redwood, a sugar pine, a dinosaur, and the Statue of Liberty. Apparently, a giant sequoia is roughly the size of 275 elephants stacked on top of each other. 😉
I thought this pine cone display was super cool. The sequoia pine cone is in the bottom left corner. The enormous pine cone in the middle is a sugar pine cone. That is the tree directly to the left of the Statue of Liberty in the last picture.
After a quick browse of the museum, it was time to get our hike on! 🙂
Our complete lack of planning set us off on this very nice trail. We thought we were heading toward the General Sherman Tree. We ended up going in a big ol’ loop around a meadow. It was beautiful but it wasn’t what we planned and kind of ate into the time we had to spend sight-seeing. LOL
Notice Matthew way ahead and nowhere near the rest of us? This was a common theme. We may or may not have told him he was in danger of getting attacked by mountain lions and bears in an attempt to get him to stay with the rest of us. 😉
The pine needles on the ground made the air smell like Christmas trees. 🙂
“The tract of land on which this tablet has been erected, together with four other tracts of land, all within the heart of the Giant Forest, was purchased from private owners with funds subscribed by the National Geographic Society together with an appropriation by the Congress of the United States. These areas were deeded to the United States on December 30, 1916, for the benefit of and to serve the people of the nation.”
Enormous trees everywhere!
Looking across the meadow
We saw LOTS of deer during the second half of our vacation. LOL
The pathway around the meadow was made from wooden planks.
After our little detour on the Big Trees Trail, we decided to take the shuttle to see the General Sherman Tree (instead of hiking there as we had initially planned. LOL)
The entrance to the General Sherman Tree hiking paths had this felled sequoia serving as a tunnel.
The top of the largest tree in the world 🙂
Pictures do not adequately convey just how darn big this tree was. LOL
We went on the other side of the tree to get pictures away from the crowd that formed around the sign. These pictures actually turned out a bit better because the lighting was more even (translation: no direct sunlight on the tree).
Sunlight peaking through the canopy
To get a sense of scale, can you see the people at the bottom of the trees posing for pictures? These were just unnamed, average ol’ sequoias in the Giant Forest.
Looking at an educational sign about the tree in front of them
General Sherman Tree is in the middle of the picture. You can kind of see people around the base of the tree. On the tree at the left, you can see a big fire scar. The trees grow bark around fire scars. Also, for a sense of scale, there is a man in a red shirt and white hat standing near the fence next to that tree.
One last picture with the General Sherman Tree
After this, we took the shuttle bus back to the Visitor Center. We ate a quick lunch at the restaurant there and then got in our car to head off toward our next adventure! To be continued…..
On Monday, we packed up, checked out of the hotel, saw Rachel off on her airport shuttle, and went to IHOP for breakfast. After we finished breakfast, we journeyed 4+ hours north toward Sequoia National Park.
The drive to Sequoia National Park was very interesting. We drove through lots of desert. California is currently experiencing a drought but it was more dry than I really expected. Just yellow/brown sand as far as you can see. I don’t know if it was the highway we were on or what but there was very little between the cities. It was just desolate desert as far as the eye can see…with a old cafe or gas station periodically dotting the landscape. It was straight out of a movie. Who knew it actually looked like that in real life?!?! LOL
Not too far north of LA, we drove past Six Flags Magic Mountain:
Desert mountains? Brown, brown, brown, aaaand MORE brown.
Every once and a while we’d drive past irrigated orchards. While it was a welcome sight, the green looked very out of place in the sea of brown sand. LOL
Almost there!
We were still in ugly desert but we could see mountains in the distance!
At the park entrance! We didn’t have to pay admission into the park because that day was the 150th anniversary of the National Park Service. 🙂
How do I explain the first 30-45 minutes of our drive within Sequoia National Park? In one word: nauseating. LOL According to a guidebook we received in our hotel, the 16 miles of road from the Ash Mountain entrance to Giant Forest includes over 120 curves and 12 switchbacks. I was very glad once we got into the forest and the shear cliffs beside the road were less visible. Ignorance is bliss! 😉
Soon we were in the forest and beginning to see some pretty large trees.
One of the first few giants that we saw!
It is so hard to show the large size of the trees. The thinner trees beside the giants were normal sized trees you’d see at home. Next to the giants, they look like twigs.
Here is a tree next to a car for a sense of scale.
The tree in the center of this picture is the Sentinel tree (which we saw the next day as well). It is right outside the Giant Forest Museum.
Enormous yet it is 42nd on the list of the largest giant sequoias!
After driving so long, we decided to pull off and go to a parking area to stretch our legs. The road led us right past these giant sequoias.
The parking lot was located directly next to Auto Log – a tree that fell in the early 1900s and was used as a driveway.
The tree was so long, it lined the parking lot and the street approach to the parking lot.
The tree roots dwarfed Mike and the boys.
I’m not sure what Ian is doing here. Trying to lift the tree?
Too tall to get the whole tree in one frame! LOL
After that we loaded back into the car to find our hotel and check in.
After not sleeping the 4 hours we’d already driven that day, this one fell asleep after we got back in the car. You know, with 30 minutes left to drive.
The hotel in Sequoia had a main lodge with a restaurant and then the hotel rooms were in dorm-like buildings across the street with separate parking. And the parking lot wasn’t super close to the hotel rooms. And it was uphill to the buildings from the parking lot. And there weren’t elevators in the buildings. And we were on the second floor. And we were 16 million feet up in the air in the mountains. Needless to say, there was much huffing and puffing while unloading the car. It kind of felt like one long asthma attack. LOL
After we got settled in, we hurried off to the visitor center to grab dinner and some food supplies before everything closed up for the night AND it got dark (translation: and was way too scary to drive).
The visitor center had a gift shop and educational exhibits inside. Directly next store was a small general store and deli/restaurant. There was also a campground located nearby and a building with showers.
We got some snacks and breakfast foods to tide us over during hikes and such. After we got the groceries, we ordered food for dinner and ate outside on picnic tables in the cool mountain air.
While we waited for our food to be prepared, we saw stellar jays. They looked very much like blue jays we see at home but were bigger with dark feathers around their heads and necks.
There were a bunch flying around the picnic tables but my bull-in-a-china-shop Matthew kept scaring them off any time I tried to get close enough to take a picture.
These two pictures were the best I got!
After we ate dinner, we headed back to our hotel, grabbed hoodies and flashlights, then hiked a few paths around our hotel registration building.
The hotel recommends guests bring flashlights as there are no lights on the streets or the walkways. Once it gets dark, it is DARK.
The hotel’s registration building. The hotel and restaurants at Sequoia (& Yosemite) are run by the Parks & Resorts division of Buffalo’s Delaware North Companies. 🙂
Gotta have a hiking stick, right?
After it started getting a little too dark for our tastes, we headed back to the registration building. I stayed there to text with mom and use the internet (wifi only in this building, ack!!!) and Mike took the boys back for baths.
Sunset in the forest
Internet service sucked (maybe because 90 people were in the lobby trying to use it?) so it took longer than I anticipated at the registration building. When I got back, the boys were bathed, jammied up, and waiting on me to play a card game before bed.
Time to play “Beat the Parents”!
After a few rounds of “Beat the Parents” we all went to sleep because we had another long day ahead of us!
**I interrupt this vacation series with a post specifically about Disneyland Resort’s rides.**
Below is a list of what one or more of us saw or did in our 3 days in Disneyland and Disney California Adventure. Attractions/entertainment that we did = YES. Attractions/entertainment that we skipped = NO.
ATTRACTIONS
Alice in Wonderland – NO
Astro Orbitor – YES
Autopia – YES
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad – YES
Big Thunder Ranch – HECK NO
Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters – YES
California Screamin’ – YES
Captain EO – CLOSED
Casey Jr. Circus Train – NO
Chip ‘n Dale Treehouse – NO
Disneyland Monorail – NO
Disneyland Railroad – NO
The Disneyland Story presenting Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln – NO
Donald’s Boat – YES
Dumbo the Flying Elephant – YES
Enchanted Tiki Room – NO
Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage – CLOSED
Flik’s Flyers – NO
Francis’ Ladybug Boogie – NO
Gadget’s Go Coaster – YES
Golden Zephyr – YES
Goofy’s Playhouse – NO
Goofy’s Sky School – YES
Grizzly River Run – YES
Haunted Mansion – YES
Heimlich’s Chew Chew Train – NO
Indiana Jones™ Adventure – YES
it’s a small world – YES
It’s Tough to be a Bug! – YES
Jumpin’ Jellyfish – YES
Jungle Cruise – YES
King Arthur Carousel – NO
King Triton’s Carousel – NO
The Little Mermaid ~ Ariel’s Undersea Adventure – YES
Luigi’s Flying Tires – YES
Mad Tea Party – YES
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh – YES
Mark Twain Riverboat – YES
Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree – YES
Matterhorn Bobsleds – YES
Mickey’s Fun Wheel – NO
Mickey’s House and Meet Mickey – YES
Minnie’s House – NO
Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue! – YES
Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride – YES
Muppet*Vision 3D – YES
Peter Pan’s Flight – YES
Pinocchio’s Daring Journey – NO
Pirates of the Caribbean – YES
Radiator Springs Racers – YES
Redwood Creek Challenge Trail – NO
Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin – NO
Sailing Ship Columbia – NO
Silly Symphony Swings – NO
Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough – YES
Snow White’s Scary Adventures – YES
Soarin’ Over California – YES
Space Mountain – YES
Splash Mountain – YES
Star Tours – The Adventures Continue – YES
Storybook Land Canal Boats – YES
Tarzan’s Treehouse™ – YES
Toy Story Midway Mania!® – YES
Tuck and Roll’s Drive ‘Em Buggies – NO
Turtle Talk with Crush – NO
The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror™ – YES
ENTERTAINMENT
Disney Junior – Live on Stage! – NO
Disney’s Aladdin – A Musical Spectacular – YES
Fantasmic! – YES
Fireworks at Disneyland Park – YES
Jedi Training Academy – NO
Mickey’s Soundsational Parade – YES
Phineas and Ferb’s Rockin’ Rollin’ Dance Party – NO
Pixar Play Parade – YES
World of Color – YES
While there are a lot of “NO” items on the list, those mostly pertained to transportation rides (monorail, train, boat), things in Mickey’s Toontown or “a bug’s land” (attractions for very little kids), or walk-through attractions that we weren’t interested in (ranch animals, Redwood Creek trail, Chip ‘n Dale treehouse). There were a few I don’t actually remember seeing while we were there but most of the items are things we intentionally skipped because we weren’t interested.
Overall, we got through the bulk of the attractions in both parks, in 3 days, with repeat rides on many of them. We took a 2+ hour break every day and each evening we waited for the evening entertainment at least 1 hour in advance of it’s start. We were able to do so much primarily due to the fact that the California parks are so much smaller and so much closer to the hotels than the parks in Florida. You spend much less time getting to/from rides, shows, hotels, restaurants in California that a greater amount of time can be spent on rides and attractions.
While Disneyland’s tiny castle was a little underwhelming, the park’s small size allowed us to do a ton in 3 days!
Our last day in Disneyland was dedicated to hitting up Fantasyland (which we’d mostly neglected thus far) and re-riding some of our favorites.
Good morning, Walt and Mickey!
Photography fail: look how SHARP that focus is on the castle! LOL
First up, Dumbo!
http://youtu.be/5_sqoBNpris
After that, it was a flurry of Fantasyland rides. I think we rode something like 5 rides in 45 minutes. LOL
Ian pretending to be terrified of Matthew’s driving skills after Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride
Waiting in line for Peter Pan’s Flight
Flexing their sword-in-stone removal muscles
Neither are the new king of England. Quite shocking, isn’t it? 😉
Next up: Mad Tea Party (isn’t it pretty?)
Riding alone so he can spin like a crazy person
Matthew insisted on riding with Mike. I’m pretty sure Mike insisted on NOT spinning. LOL
My ride partner agreed with my condition of “no extra spinning”. Just enough spinning to give this picture some motion blur. 🙂
After we finished up Fantasyland, we headed to Frontierland and Critter Country to hit up Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Splash Mountain, and the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad selfie!
Splash Mountain!
After that, we went back over to Tomorrowland to re-ride some favorites.
Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters stopped mid-ride so while we sat in the dark, I took this picture. 🙂
Star Tours again!
After that, we were all hungry for lunch. We were a little tired of theme park food so we decided to go to Downtown Disney for lunch at a sit-down restaurant.
Naples Ristorante e Pizzeria
Afterward we decided to take the boys shopping for their long-anticipated Disneyland treat: RideMakerz cars! They’d been nagging about it for about a month – ever since we told them about our trip and watched the Downtown Disney segment on our Disneyland trip planning DVD. The nagging got 100X worse once we walked past RideMakerz on the way to dinner the night we arrived at Disneyland LOL
RideMakerz is basically Build A Bear for boys. You pick a chassis and then can get all sorts of extra add-ons to make your car extra awesome.
Instead of lovingly stuffing a bear with cotton and gently placing a heart inside, the boys got to screw wheels onto their car and snap tires on the wheels in competitive, timed-race format. LOL
http://youtu.be/qO-DcI9lXec
Shockingly, they had a ball. After they did the wheel/tire thing, we were free to try on accessories as we wished. We had to limit the boys to 1 each they’d already upgraded their wheels/tires. That stuff is expensive!
Finished products!
They were in heaven!
After taking a second mortgage out at RideMakerz, we headed to the World of Disney to pick up souvenirs. After that, we headed back to the hotel for naps.
After naps, we went back to Disneyland and saw Minnie! I completely humiliated Matthew by yelling “Hi, Minnie!” after I took this pictures. But!!! I got a wave so BOOYAH!!! 😉
We split up at this point. Mike took the boys on Autopia while Rachel and I planned to ride Space Mountain again. Space Mountain had a million hour wait so we decided to go on Buzz Lightyear again.
Guess who is the most competitive of the Jones sisters? LOL
After that the boys decided they wanted to ride, you guessed it, Buzz Lightyear. LOL
After that, we did a few more rides and had dinner.
Ian and Aunt Rachel walking into Adventureland.
I was surprised but the boys requested Jungle Cruise a second time
After dinner, we decided to split up. Mike took the boys potty and to get snacks (churro for Matthew, popcorn for Ian) while Rachel and I got Dole Whips. We met up in front of the castle where Ian, Rachel, and I were going to wait to see fireworks. Mike and Matthew headed back to the hotel to watch TV and waste precious Disneyland touring time. 😉
Front and center for the fireworks!
We sat on the ground while we waiting for the show to start. Ian and I looked through photos I had taken with my phone and texted with my mom for a bit. It actually turned out to be a nice time.
We also took pictures while we waited. Ian snapped this one of Rachel and me.
Rachel took this of Ian and me.
A guy sitting behind us snapped a handful of pictures for us in an attempt to get a picture where Ian didn’t look drunk. This was the best we got. LOL
“Glow with the Show” ears:
http://youtu.be/h771WpzhbiI
While waiting for fireworks, they made an announcement that they were considering canceling the show because of the breeze. I was so nervous we weren’t going to see it but the show went on as scheduled! Woo!
http://youtu.be/fpV5kln3a2o
In my opinion, the fireworks couldn’t replace Walt Disney World’s Wishes in my heart. LOL I think the castle and fireworks being smaller just made the show a little less…something. I don’t know. They were very good. I just like Wishes better.
That being said, seeing Tinker Bell **AND** Dumbo flying was pretty darn awesome, I thought the carousel projections during the Mary Poppins piece were really cool, and I absolutely loved Flora and Merryweather fighting over the castle color. 🙂
When you see how much Tinker Bell and Dumbo fly and how low/close the fireworks are, you can better understand why they were considering canceling the show because of the wind. Craziness!
Some pictures during the fireworks:
After fireworks, we ended the Disneyland portion of the trip by heading back to the hotel for the night.
See you later, Disneyland!
We wanted to visit Cars Land but were unwilling to wait an hour + in line for some of the rides. As a result, we made Cars Land our first priority for our second day in Disneyland. We made Rachel our FastPass runner for Radiator Springs Racers and planned to meet up with her in the standby line once she got passes. Our plan worked out perfectly! We were guaranteed 2 pretty short waits for the one of the most popular rides in the parks.
While we waited for the in-park rope drop (and Rachel readied her racing shoes), we did a little shopping. Translation: I finally got the Minnie ears I had been wanting!
I wore the ears non-stop for the rest of our time in Disneyland. I may or may not wear them around the house on a regular basis too. LOL
Waiting to run!
Waiting in the standby line once we met up with Rachel
We’re up NEXT!!!!
Meeting up with Lightening and Mater at the end of the ride
We won our race! Woooo!!!
Next up was Luigi’s Flying Tires – you sit on tire shaped cars that are lifted by fans on the ride “floor”. You have to lean your tire to move it and bump into the other riders. Sort of bumper cars with a twist.
See the tire topiaries in the background? Gotta love Disney’s attention to details. Cars Land was ridiculously awesome when it came to the little details.
Steering took a little bit to get the hang of…
The boys got a big kick out of bumping into me and Mike. LOL
While we waited for our FastPass return time, we got our picture taken with Red and explored Cars Land a bit.
It was like being in the movie!
Tail light flowers in tire planters 🙂
Almost time to ride again
While we were waiting, Matthew found this Hidden Mickey all on his own! Do you see it? In the wire above the trees/building? It was pretty much the only real Hidden Mickey we found the whole trip. We brought a Hidden Mickey book with us and every other one we saw we learned about in the book first. Except this one. This Hidden Mickey wasn’t even in the book that we had. How ’bout that?!?!
Our second race. We won this one too! 🙂
Next up: Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree
Paradise Pier
We kind of stood beside/under the Zephyr when we watched World of Color the night before and Matthew begged to ride it so we did that next.
See us in the last 2 rows?
We wanted to ride Toy Story Midway Mania but the line was pretty long and it doesn’t have FastPass in Disneyland. While we were deciding what to do, strangers walked by and said they had handicap guess passes and that 2 of us could go with them if we’d like. We took them up on the offer and Ian and I rode the ride with little wait.
I kicked his cute little butt. You may think it’s mean that I’d brag about that but he likes to rub my loss in Disney World in my face on a regular basis so I figure it’s fair. 😉
We were going to ride California Screamin’ a second time but Ian kind of freaked out and was feeling dizzy so we stopped for lunch instead. After lunch we saw some green army guys making a racket.
After this we hightailed it across the park to see the Aladdin show. I only had a few must-sees in Disneyland: Cars Land, World of Color, Fantasmic, fireworks over the castle, a Dole Whip, and Aladdin. Aladdin was only playing a few times each day so we really wanted to get into the post-lunch show. Thankfully we got there in time and had great seats even though we were way up high. The show was a lot of fun and the boys were really into it. 🙂
After that we did “Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue!”, got a few snacks, and then went back to the hotel for naps.
Pre-nap snacks: Ian’s first Mickey head ice cream bar and Matthew’s 783rd churro. LOL
After naps, we headed back to California Adventure to do ride Radiator Springs Racers one more time as well as a handful of other rides.
We saw DJ rocking out on Route 66:
http://youtu.be/ejzWDm3gtrk
Then we rode Radiator Springs Racers again and, you guessed it, WON OUR RACE!
Courtney joined us via FaceTime for this race! 🙂
My one regret was that we never got to see Radiator Springs light up at dusk and I’m not sure we saw it in the dark either. I can’t remember. LOL
Parade photobomb
http://youtu.be/NJgfgSiX5QA
http://youtu.be/SFRi6fDhbew
After getting in our last few rides at California Adventure, we headed over to Disneyland where we hoped to catch the late showing of Fantasmic.
We had dinner as soon as we entered the park and then did: Indiana Jones, Jungle Cruise, Haunted Mansion…that may have been it. It’s hard to remember the exact order of everything. LOL
In line for Jungle Cruise
We walked by the castle all lit up and pretty.
By the time we went to stake spots for the second showing of Fantasmic, we were all tired and frustrated with the crowds. We ended up grabbing seats with a pretty bad view but we were tired of fighting the crowd and worrying about sticking together. After sitting for maybe 5 minutes, a gentleman came up to us and asked us if we were waiting for Fantasmic. When we said “yes”, he asked if we were interesting in joining him on blankets near the front. We said “sure” and were blown away. Our new seats were probably 8-10 people back from the water.
Fantasmic is a musical adventure where the forces of good and evil battle in Mickey’s dreams.
Here is video I found online, it was a little different at the end (characters on the riverboat, not on the island) but it gives you a really good idea of what we saw:
Sorcerer Mickey from Fantasia projected on water
Peter Pan and Captain Hook battling it out on a pirate ship
See Peter on the gangplank?
Hook being chased by Tick Tock Crocodile
Belle and Beast
Prince Eric and Ariel
Snow White and her prince
The Evil Queen
Mirror, mirror, on the wall…
This is the finale that we saw:
http://youtu.be/N6gv9jgrBIE
Our last day in Disneyland is up next!