Another Bravo Road Trip!! Our original plan was to be on the road bright and early around 7am, but we ended up sleeping in a bit. After dropping Winnie off at daycare and getting everything packed up we hit the road just before 9am. It all worked out, though, we hit everything we wanted to see with time to spare. We ended up taking the Jeep Wrangler instead of our new Renegade. Jaime wanted to do the driving, and the Wrangler has more room, and a bigger gas tank, so less need to stop for gas so often.

We drove up through Bakersfield, and let me tell ya, that is not a very scenic drive. But we made to the entrace of Sequioa National Park at around 1:00pm. Since it was Sunday, very thankfully, we didn't hit any traffic, not even around Los Angeles.

Our main goal on this trip was to see and hike around Yosemite. But knowing this park was more or less on the way, we figured we might as well knock out TWO more National Parks.

To backtrack a bit, we did not want to camp in either of the parks, it was still a little chilly, and since we'd be spending all day out and about, setting up camp for just two nights seemed like a lot of work. But unfortunately, the hotels around Yosemite were crazy expensive!! Instead of spending three nights at a hotel, we decided to only do 2 nights, and would drive home after whatever we did on Tuesday, instead of sleeping at the hotel Tuesday, just to wake up super early Wednesday morning to drive home. Long story short, we packed in a LOT of hiking, walking, driving, sight-seeing, and wildlife encounters in just three VERY exhausting days.

Back to the trip...

We really only had one goal for Sequoia and that was to see the world's Largest Tree - General Sherman, which was located in the Giant Forest. Other than that, we figured we would just stop and check out whatever we thought looked interesting. We really had no itinerary.

We stopped to ask a Ranger what they would suggest we see (other than General Sherman) if we had just the one day there. I had a co-worker text me and say she was at Sequioa not long ago, and recommended we do the Moro Rock Trail. Since we had no agenda, we figured checking that out would be as good a plan as any. More on that later.

First thing was we took a photo with the Sequoia National Park Sign. It is pretty cool to be collecting photos of National Park entrance signs. we have quite a few now. We then came upon Tunnel Rock. (See photos) and then we just drove up into the Giant Forest. Along the way, the views were SPECTACULAR! We are talking breathtaking, mind-blowing panormic scenic views you think only exist in pictures. There were some lookout point we stopped to take advantage of some photo ops, but more importantly, just soaked in the view. The roads were very windy, very steep, and kind of scary. We are glad we were driving this during the day.

Here we are, just driving the roads of Sequioa, when out of nowhere, we enter the Giant Forest, and HOLY COW! We literally both said "WOW" out loud and were in awe of the giant Sequoias. It was a very scenic and cool drive to the parking lot for the trailhead to General Sherman.

The park was not all that busy, there was no line at the entrance. There were very few cars ahead of us or behind us on the roads, and only a handful of people at the lookout point we stopped at. But when we got to that parking lot in the Giant Forest, BOOM! That was where all the people were. It was hard to find a parking spot, but luck was on our side, as somebody was pulling out of their spot as we drove around and we got a sweet parking spot right near the trailhead.

The trail to the spot where General Sherman (and many other notable trees) was mostly paved, but was pretty steep. There was a very good amount of people there, but all were in masks (for the most part) as were we. But as we were outside, and there was plenty of room to keep distant from others, it was all good. Plus, both of us had both our vaccine doses at this point, so we were not as worried, however were very cautious to be respecful of others' space.

We get down to the bottom of the trail, and wouldn't you know it, the largest crowd around was around General Sherman waiting to get a photo. We didn't come all this way to not get a photo, so we waited in line too. Luckily we got some good shots and didn't have to wait too long. Around that area was some other VERY cool and VERY large trees. It was fun to walk around and see these giants. It was also a pretty warm day, but that far down deep in the giant sequioa's shade, it was pretty shady and breezy, which felt very nice.

After spending some time there, we hiked back up to the Jeep and drove to the area that led to the Moro Rock trail, and luckily to the Tunnel Log, which was another spot we wanted to see. Unfortunately for us, the road that led to these two areas was closed to vehicles. It was open for pedestrian traffic, but it added more than a mile walk each way to our point of interest. But we did not complain, as walking around, being outside, and hiking is what we were there for.

At this point, it was about 4:30pm or so. And since most of the road was an actual road for cars to drive on, this was just a walk along a paved road. But we saw some pretty cool stuff along the way. First of all, of course, more giant trees. We saw fallen trees, and of course made our way to the Tunnel Log, which made for some cool photos. People were nice enough everywhere we went to take some photos of the both of us, and we returned the favor.

Now for the big (and scary) part of the story. Moro Rock Trail was just a bit further and we still had some daylight to burn, so we decided to go for it. I really had no idea what it was, just read it was less than 1 mile round trip - .4 miles there, .4 miles back. Jaime and I were like, that is child's play. Well, little did we know, this trail was basically scaling the side of a freaking MOUNTAIN! it was paved, had steps, handrails, and markers. We even saw some very young children on the way up and coming down the trail, so we were both like, ok, it can't be that bad....

Neither Jaime or I have a fear of heights, really. But darn it if this little hike didn't give us a mind-numbing fear of them!! It was steep, it was scary, and we were already tired from a full day of driving and hiking. We considered turning back, but were like, well we made it this far, let's see what's up here. We made it, safely and wow, were the views incredible. We were above EVERYTHING, and every corner showed a different unbelievable view. The area up there was pretty rocky and uneven, so we were still a little nervous, and only got a few pictures where we could hold on to a handrail. You might be able to tell in some pics we both look a little uneasy, and that's because we were. But we did take the time to enjoy ourselves, and the hike back down was much more enjoyable.

To be clear, this is a marked, paved, well hiked trail. Like I mentioned before, there were litle kids doing this trail, as well as older people. There were handrails, and it was all very safe, but given that were already tired, it was the end of the day, and we had no idea what we were getting into, it came as a bit of a shock to us. But it is not like we were scaling some wall with no harness, there were steps, and I am making it sound a lot more scary than it really was, but that was how we felt in the moment! Afterwards we were both like, "Why did we do that?" But, after our intial shock wore off, we realized it was pretty cool and were glad we did it.

On the way back to the car, we saw some people gathered around a bit off the trail, and saw that they were looking at two baby bear cubs! They were pretty far away I could not get a photo. Jaime said he saw the Mama bear, but I did not. It was pretty cool, and was the first of several wildlife encounters we had on this little trip.

Nothing felt better than to be back in the comfort of the Jeep after such a nerve-wracking hike! We were tired, and ready to get to our hotel. Luckily, we learned we could just continue the drive through Sequoia, come out near Fresno, then head up to our hotel which was in a little town called Oakhurst, about 15 minutes from south entrance of Yosemite. We got out of Sequioa a bit before 8pm. We had plenty of snacks throughout the day, but we stopped in Fresno at an In'N'Out for a late dinner around 9:30pm, and got to our hotel around 10pm. We walked over 20,000 steps, and spent over 8 hours driving. Needless to say we were EXHAUSTED. What a day!

Our plan was to start the day SUPER early on Monday as we were close to the south entrance, but we needed to get to Yosemite Valley, which was over an hour from where were were staying. But more on our action packed day in Yosemite in my next entry!

We hope you enjoy the pictures from Sequoia. Many of them don't do justice to what we saw, but we did our best to capture everything.