The Elusive Weekend Away Finally Happens

Our plans for the weekend shifted suddenly and we found ourselves on Friday night with a fairly open couple of days in front of us. We love General Conference, but the chance to get away almost never presents itself, and we decided to take a fly by the seat of our pants trip up the coast to see the California Giant Redwoods.

Okay, really Marc and the kids wanted to take this trip. I, in my hate for all plan changing ways, wanted to stay home and paint my bookshelves and clean my bathrooms and maybe get out some Halloween decorations. But whatever. I got over it and I'm glad I did.

The drive was actually a lot of fun. On Saturday morning we just threw a ton of sleeping bags in the car and took off. We laughed and sang and talked, it was really nice to be smooshed all together in our new non-mini-van. We pulled into a camp ground around 2pm and decided to splurge on a $50 cabin since we didn't have our tent.

 We ate sausage and hot dogs and s'mores.

Every tiny little rest stop we drove past had a sign claiming to be the "World Famous" something or other...but the next day when we got onto the Avenue of the Giants we really were blown away. There are no photos (that I took) that can do it justice, but I'm posting away.

“The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always. No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe. It's not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time.”

-John Steinbeck

Thank you Mr. Steinbeck. We felt it, but I couldn't express it.

I can't 'splain my son.

We hiked all over. The kids climbed, oh, everything. Jonathan took a nasty fall off of one big stump and got scratched up pretty badly, but he is man, and kept his stoic on.

This is the official tallest tree in the world.

It is world famous, while we were there we met people from Texas, Denmark, and Ireland. So there. Ellie won't look at the camera because she is mad because the whole world isn't revolving around her, darn it!

This family weekend was about a million times better than if we had stayed home and done what I wanted. Sometimes I wish we were better planners(!), but sometimes being impulsive works out just right.

p.s. I just realized the sweater I'm wearing has been worn by both Maddie and Katie on "ugly sweater day" at their high school. But I make it work.