Week 4: Southern Cali and Seqoia National Park

Hello from New Mexico!

We are escaping the afternoon heat and are very happy to be sitting on a couch in air conditioning. A couch! We are getting used to our road life and these luxuries are precious.

So here's our Week 4 in review. It already seems like a long time ago. So we continued our foray in LA by going to visit Amy's Aunt Nancy and hanging out with the cousins. Nice to have some familial comfort on this long trip away from any sort of home. Thanks everyone for hosting and feeding us and showing us around.

We recently saw a bumper sticker that said:

 "Home is where it's parked."

Pretty much true. We've got everything we own with us and no foreseeable address. Weeeee!

Los Angeles

                                            Amy's family, Nancy, Jade, Danny and Darci in LA.
                      

              They took us to Venice Beach where Patrick joined the beach acrobats on the rings, and we oogled at the stereotypically eclectic crowd.

                                                                      

       I can't believe it either, I went shooting.

Thanks to Amy's cousin Jeff who took us to his favorite spot.

Got to hang out with Shawn and his family in Carlsbad.

Enjoying the Pacific beaches for the last time! Saw dolphins actually jumping out of the water during sunset. Pretty ridiculous. We got to swim and surf without a wetsuit, which was a welcome change from those WA ocean waters.

         

Snorkeled here thanks to Shawn, great tip.

              In the ocean, on the first day of fall. Look at those temps. Doesn't feel like fall here! We got to snorkel with our first mammals - California sea lions.  They are better swimmers than we are.

                                          

More great hosts -   Amy's family Jamie and Raul

Seqoia National Park

And then Sequoia.  Note to L.A. friends, it's only 4 hours away.

Patrick is somewhere in the picture below.  

(He's smaller than you might think)

This is the same log in both pictures, it looks like rock in the bottom picture. 

 The giant cones are sugar pines, the little ones are the sequoias. Thought it would be the other way around.  The park was amazing, despite the cold and rain and everything going wrong.  Morro Rock might have been the scariest hike I've been on in a while, rain and hail and all.  It was worth it though.  The big trees are, big.  It's crazy walking around in a forest where the trees are 2000 years old and take 5 minutes to walk around.  Also, lots of bears.  The highlight was seeing a mom and 2 cubs climb a tree. 

Patrick is in this picture too. Almost too tiny to see.We really just couldn't take enough pictures. I wish we could capture the smell too, this was the best smelling forest I've ever been in. The sequoias give off a vanilla-like forest scent.

                                                              

Morro Rock

Some four hundred scary stairs up. In the hail. But what a view of the Sierras.

And just one more tree picture. 'Cuz they're so incredible. I measured one...it would take 19 people linking arms around the tree to completely surround it. 19! These living treasures are worth a pilgrimage. It is quite humbling to be in their elder presence.

We said a sad goodbye to the sequoias and headed out. Next stop Arizona! (Yes, folks, that means we actually started going East.)