A Day in the Sequoias

We made a last minute decision to visit Sequoia National Park over Labor Day weekend. The sequoias were beautiful and incredible, but man it was a doozy of a trip!! You just can never predict what a trip will be like with a toddler. The drive up is about 5 hours and Lucy just was not having it the day we drove up. It was pretty rough and I was honestly about to lose my mind by the time we got to the hotel. It ended up being a very very very hard day. I was emotionally taxed from all of Lucy's crying and when we made it to the hotel our dog sitter texted me to let me know Winston wasn't behaving well at her house and I needed to find him another place to stay. 

It was so strange because Winston is normally a very well behaved dog! She said he was marking her house and had bit her puppy. I believed her but it didn't sound like Winston at all! Trying to find a dog sitter from 5 hours away ASAP is incredibly stressful. I was honestly ready to just turn around and forget the whole trip! But we had driven up with Duke's brother and mom and I didn't want to ruin the whole trip over my emotional mess. After a few hours I found a very very kind lady who loved English Bulldogs and told me she'd watch him for free.

I'll write about how that story with Winston ends in another post since this one is supposed to be about the sequoias. We spent just one day driving through the park and drove a smidge into King's Canyon as well. I'm so grateful we have the national parks that preserve these gorgeous pieces of land! America is awesome. There is so much diversity in land in just our country. Our goal is to hit up all or at least as many of the national parks in California as we can while we are here. So Lucy had better start learning to enjoy the car a little more!

Lucy and her cousin Jack running full speed ahead

Lucy looking at the biggest tree in the world-General Sherman

General Sherman, pictures do not do it justice!

favorite picture of the trip^

Lucy looking out at the "big trees" and she spilt water on her shirt which is why it's off (typical)

cool, hallowed out tree on it's side you ^could walk through

Quick stop in King's Canyon National Park

I love visiting national parks! The earth is amazing. 

Hira Taki Waterfall

So this waterfall has been on my Oki bucket list for a while now. I definitely underestimated the turmoil this hike would cause me. There were SO MANY spider webs & spiders! Like every couple feet there would be a massive network of spider webs. Sometimes just layers of them. It was insane and definitely took us a lot longer since we were constantly stopping to knock them down. I'm pretty terrified of spiders so I was hunched over and tense for the entire hour+ hike to the falls. Like my back hurt the rest of the day lol. It was pretty, although I don't think we even made it to the main fall haha. But we decided the one we saw was good enough. It was a beautiful hike, just be prepared for some serious spider web knocking. We also def wore the wrong clothes. We both left with some bites, assumedly from spiders. But most the hike is through the river. Last piece of advice is I wouldn't bring young kids. It's pretty slippery and the path is not well worn at all. In fact if it weren't for the markers I wouldn't have known where the path was. All that said, I had a lot of fun since Joanna was willing to brave the way and knock down the webs while I cowered behind her. 

 When Joanna took a pretty hard fall lol. It was sad but she laughed it off

the waterfall we ended at

 so we got to a point on the trail and it looked like the only way forward was to jump off the stream/waterfall (pictured below) so we stopped to snapchat and then luckily we saw the camouflaged rope of the side of the cliff^. close call lol.

^me the entire hike

Flying Around Okinawa

I've been begging for Duke to take me flying before we leave Okinawa. I mean, hello, my husband is a pilot and he's never taken me flying! That just seemed wrong to me. It's a lengthy process to be able to check out your own plane, so we ended up tagging along with his co-worker who has already done the whole deal. It was fun to see him flying to get a tiny taste of what he does and I even got to do a little flying myself!! We flew up the east side of Okinawa to Yuron-the island just to the north of Okinawa. Then back down the west coast to Kadena. My only job when I was flying was to keep us flying straight and at 1500 ft. It was cool, but I'm happier just looking out the window and being along for the ride haha. I was a little bummed it was an overcast day bc the water is never as pretty as on a nice sunny day, but it was still so beautiful. I feel so lucky to have called this little island home for 3+ years.

 That's Miyagi and Ikei Island^

Yuron Island^

 Landed in Yuron, then flew back

 The ocean is my favorite color

 This is me flying-but looking over at the altitude. 

 The aqaurium and Expo Park! A dolphin show was going on lol

 Flying over the island made me wish I had time to explore all the beaches I saw. I love the beach!

 maeda point-with all the boat divers

 Zanpa lighthouse!

 I love how much farmland there is in Okinawa.

Landing back at Kadena.