Trinity Lake, California

Ah, Trinity Lake, where should I begin?

I guess I will start with the drive. We found out the hard way that there is only one way to get there, straight up a mountain road, and one way to get out, back down the same road. Oh, and did I mention that the road is barely wide enough for both directions of traffic? And did I mention the 90 degree turns every 20 yards? And that it took us two hours to drive 70 miles? Good times.

We finally arrived at the Trinity Lake KOA. If you ever find yourself looking at this sign...run! LOL

Maybe it was just that the 4th of July weekend brought out the extra special breed of campers. I'm not sure if it was watching the guy who brought his pit bull with the heavy duty metal chain as a leash into the pool area that made me uncomfortable. Or if it was the drunk chic who stumbled through the pool area asking me if I had a "light for her smokes" that turned me off to the whole scene. I was definitely ready to go as I watched that same woman proceeded to ask various children if they had a lighter for her to use. Seriously people. Really?

OK, there was a silver lining and that was Trinity Lake itself beacuse it is beautiful.

The view from our boat on Trinity Lake.

We rented a pontoon boat for four hours and took off to explore the lake, do a little fishing and maybe take a swim. The kids were excited because we have never rented a boat before and I don't think they have ever swam in a lake before either.

The Skipper and Gilligan out for a four hour tour.

I guess it would be more accurate to say, they were excited to swim in the lake in theory only. When in came time to jump in, they where suddenly in fear for their lives. They were convinced something in the lake would get them after they jumped in.

So Tom "helped" Andrew get in. By helped, I mean he pushed him over the side. Tom claims Andrew told him to push him in but I'm not sure I'm buying that one.

For the first few seconds, I really thought Andrew was going to drown. Thank goodness we suggested he wear his life vest since it was so deep. My kids are great swimmers but the fear of the lake monster had a tight grip on Andrew until we could get him back on the boat.

Eventually, after getting in a few times and nothing ate them, they got over it and jumped in on their own free will. Tom and I even took a dip. The water was crisp and refreshing. (And by crisp and refreshing, I mean it was freaking cold!)

Kait and Andrew swim in Trinity Lake.

Everything was going smoothly until we refueled the boat and started the return trip back to the KOA marina where we rented the boat. As soon as we cleared the marina where we refueled, the engine stalled and wouldn't restart. There we sat drifting in the wake.

Fortunately, the guy who prepped the boat wrote down his cell number for us. "Just in case anything comes up, not that it will," he said.

Unfortunately, the guy who wrote down his cell phone number also carried it off with the clipboard he was carrying. Of course we didn't realize it until we were sitting on the dead boat, looking for his number and replaying those last few moments in our mind.

After calling information and getting the campground number and then calling the campground 5 times because it kept going to voicemail, we were able to get in touch with the guy who came out and towed us back to the marina.

He was nice enough to not charge us for returning the boat late.

And that about sums up the good times we had at Trinity Lake, California. Consider yourself duly warned.

West Sacramento, California

Our next stop was suppose to be San Francisco, California but we blew it off. I know, you are probably thinking "How could you skip San Francisco?!?"

I don't know, we were tired and after driving through the LA area we weren't too excited about another big city that wasn't really designed to handle RV's.

Instead, we drove to the West Sacramento KOA and took a couple days to just hang out, do laundry, clean and go to the grocery store.

Andrew sick and tired.

Luckily, this was also the place that Andrew decided to get sick. He couldn't have picked a better time to not feel like doing anything because we didn't have anything we wanted to do so that's just what we did.

Coursegold, California

After the Sequoias, we were excited to be heading to another great place, Yosemite National Park.

The drive from Visalia was suppose to be quick but unfortunately we arrived at our next campground to find out it was full (the internet said there were sites available) so we had to drive back down the winding, narrow road to the campground that had space.(Incidentally, it was also the campground that we had passed a few hours earlier.) Let's just say it was a stressful day and leave it at that.

El Capitan, the largest monolith of granite in the world.

Of course, we were reminded why we made the trip as soon as we arrived at Yosemite. It was an absolutely gorgeous place to visit. We took some short hikes and packed a picnic lunch which the kids devoured in one of the parking lots!

Enjoying lunch on the side of the road (literally!).

Bridalveil Fall

Andrew and I hiked to the base of Bridalveil Fall and were rewarded by the wind shifting and blowing gallons of freezing cold mountain water on us! LOL Tom gave me the camera so he and Kaitlyn could make their way up but the wind never kicked up and they came back dry as a bone!

Drenched but happy.

Yosemite is one of those places that you could visit many times and never see it all or do it all. My only advice is to make your reservations early and for as long as you can and then submerse yourself in the park. Yosemite is VERY popular and crowded so brace yourself for that too.

Tom and the kids at Yosemite.

Another pretty pic of Yosemite National Park.

Visalia, California

Sadly, we had to leave the California coast so we could get moving northward. However, we were rewarded at our next destination - Sequoia National Park. It was like wandering into a forest made for giants. A.MAZ.ING.

Kait and Andrew at Sequoia National Park.

We parked the RV in nearby Visalia, CA and took the car to Sequoia. Once we entered the park, the drive was crazy! The road zig-zagged up and down mountains. When the sign said, "Right turn 20 mph" you better take the turn at 15 mph! It took us an hour to get from the gate to the Giant Forest.

We didn't even get to the park until 4:30 p.m. so we stopped at the visitor's center and asked the ranger on duty if she felt we were arriving too late to really see anything that day. She said we had plenty of time and then rattled off five or six trails we could stop and hike on our way to the Giant Forest. She talked so fast my head was spinning!

Let's just say, that lady must have thought we waddled as fast as she talked because there was no way we could have done all of the things she said we should/could do before we made it to the Sequoias and before nightfall.

She did us another big favor by warning us about the bears and cougars in front of Kaitlyn. I wasn't sure we were going to be able to get her out of the car let alone to hike into the forest after that speech! LOL (She's a bit of a drama queen and a scaredy cat!)

I did my part by reassuring her that the bears and cougars wouldn't get us and if they did, she just needed to outrun one of us.

Here are some more pics but you really need to see this place with your own eyes!


Trying to wrap our arms around a Sequoia...not even close.



The General Sherman tree, largest in the world.

It's hard to believe trees this huge start from a seed the size of a piece of oatmeal. We would have loved to be able to spend more time in Sequoia and over at Kings Canyon National Park but California is a big state and we had more places to go....next up Yosemite!

Dana Point, California

Southern California is also home to one of my favorite people, the amazing Doris Muna. We were able to get together for coffee one morning and catch up. We walked around Dana Point Harbor chatting and picking out our next boat! LOL

Kaitlyn's new best friend, Doris!

It was so good to see you Doris and finally meet your husband! Thanks for getting together with us on such short notice and giving me a copy of your book!

La Jolla, California

While we were based in Oceanside, we took a day and drove down to La Jolla, California. Our long distance travel advisor (aka Tom's sister, Cathy), gave us a tip that there are fun tide pools to explore, lots of seals and really good places to eat there so we wanted to check it out.

Looking in the tide pools at La Jolla.

There were lots of seals hanging out too and I found some shells at Shell Beach. We had lunch at The Cottage. Two thumbs up. I highly recommend the tortilla soup and the chicken salad sandwich. Life is good in La Jolla. :-)

A baby seal playing by the shore.

Lots of seals sunning on the rocks.

Oceanside, California

We finally made it to California. We were going to go all the way to San Diego but decided the campground, Paradise By The Sea RV Resort, in Oceanside looked good so we checked in there for a few days.

I always want to stay at an RV park with beach access. The RV park had a path that walked us right down to Buccaneer Beach in Oceanside. It was overcast part of the time but then the sun came out and we got a little sunburned. It was great to sit and watch the kids play with their boogie boards in the Pacific Ocean
.

Kait & Andrew playing in the Pacific Ocean.

We were also right next to Carlsbad, California, home of Legoland. Kaitlyn and Andrew's cousin has told them about Legoland for years so they were very excited to finally get to go there.

I had always thought that Legoland was just a place to go and play with legos and look at the lego statues and buildings but we found out it is also an amusement park with roller coasters and rides. Needless to say, we all had a blast.

Elvis in the Lego Walk of Fame. (This one's for you Don!)

Tom's having fun spinning the kids on the Bionicle Blaster.

There were a lot of really cool Lego sculptures and in mini-land they had a special exhibit of Star Wars characters and scenes from all of the various movies. (So now you have a choice of either seeing all of the rock pictures from Utah or just ask Tom to see all of the Lego pictures instead.)

I have to admit, it seems being a Lego engineer would be one of the coolest jobs in the world.

Lego Darth Vader

Lego R2-D2 and Lego Chewbacca.

They also had Lego versions of many of the cities we have visited or will be visiting and an entire Lego animal safari. Legoland is a must do if you are in the Southern California area.

Lego U.S. Capital

Lego elephant.