We have been visiting Jason's Mom in California this week and were fortunate enough to be able to take a little day trip up to the Sequoia National Park. The park is home to 5 of the 10 largest trees in the world! Jason planned the whole outing and had quite the list of places he wanted to see while we were there. I was skeptical that we would be able to cover all of the stops on his list in one day but we actually were able to see quite a few of them.
Our First stop was Hospital Rock. Hospital Rock was home to the Potwisha Native Americans, and was named by Hale Tharp after a couple of explorers spent time there with the natives healing from various injuries. The rock has pictographs from the Potwisha as well as a near by bedrock mortar site in the rock where the women of the tribe would gather together to grind acorns into flour.
Next we headed up to The Giant Forest Museum where we were able to learn about the giant redwoods which we were about to see. Since this was the first national park we have stopped at on our adventures we took the opportunity to purchase the girls each a national park passport book so they can track our park visits. We also got our first Jr. Ranger books which allow the girls to work towards a badge at each park we visit. The program is pretty cool, it is set up by age group and each park has its own requirements for the children to complete on their visit. Once the girls complete their work they bring the books back to a park volunteer. The park volunteer then checks their work and swears them in as jr. rangers. They are then awarded a Jr. Ranger badge.
F was quite proud of her badge and has been wearing it ever since. I look forward to doing more of these as we travel to the different parks during our journey!
After the museum it was time to head out on the trails to go hiking, and the first stop was to see The General Sherman, the worlds largest tree by volume. It was quite impressive.

Me and the girls walking around the foot print of the tree, The base of the tree with a full grown adult standing by it, a whole tree shot of The General Sherman

The trail we chose to hike was called Congress trail which is an easy 2.2 mile hike that meanders through these amazing beauties, including some very impressive clusters of redwoods called The House and The Senate.

The House Cluster, Looking up at the House, the root system of a fallen giant

One thing that was very interesting about these massive trees is that there is not one that has not been scarred by fire. I guess you don't live thousands of years without a few fires! The giant redwoods have adapted to survive wild fire. The bark of the redwood grow can grow up to three feet thick. Above the girls are standing in the bunt out hollow at the base of a giant redwood.
The next hike we took was the Crescent Meadow Trail, about 1.6 miles. Here we were surprised to find a bit of snow still in the meadow, as the weather has been rather mild. The girls were very excited to see their first snow of the year. On this hike we encountered Chimney Tree, a burnt out tree that you can sit in with a beautiful view through its chimney, and Tharp's Log. Tharp's Log is the one time residence of Hale Tharp, the first non-native to explore the area. Tharp was a cattle man and "discovered" the area with the help of native guides. He drove the cattle there each summer and turned the log into his summer home.

Our Last hike of the day was a short, but steep one.

That's right we had to check out the very top of that giant rock, Moro Rock. It is a short 797 ft long climb up 400 steps to the summit with an elevation of 6725 ft!
It was quite an intense climb, I had a death grip on the girls the whole way up! The photo of us above was about half way up the climb and it makes my heart skip a beat to see little R so close to that edge!!
The views were breathtaking though, well worth the climb!

The valley below Moro Rock

The High Sierras, view from Moro Rock

After we made it back down safely we had to rush to get back to the museum for the girls to turn in their workbooks to the rangers so that they could earn their badges before the museum closed. We made it with 30 minutes to spare! As we walked back to our car we had time to stop at one more overlook, Beetle Rock to take in one last amazing view before heading back down to the valley. We were all exhausted by the time we returned home, but what an amazing day!

One of our favorite stops so far was The Sea Lion Caves in Florence Oregon. The cave is privately owned and is America's largest sea cave. It is the home of a group of Steller Sea Lions who spend several months in the cave, roughly November through August. The sea lions were not yet in the cave when we visited but they out in the water nearby. We were able to see them playing in the surf, hanging out in large floating groups called "rafts" and lounging on nearby rocks.





The day we arrived was a blustery overcast day as a storm was rolling in. Many of the photos we took did not turn out because it was so dark and hazy. The kind workers at the cave were nice enough to give us a rain check though and we were able to come back the following day which was much better weather wise.


We were able to see so much more the second day. From the caves we could see Heceta Lighthouse off in the distance. We decided we should take a little hike out to see the lighthouse since it was such a beautiful day and we had experienced so few of those on this trip to the coast. The trail was about a mile and a half, and other than being very muddy it was quite beautiful.



The light house itself was quite beautiful and there were spectacular views from it as well.
As an added bonus to the beautiful day, we were able to find a scenic overlook on the drive back where we were able to see a huge group of the sea lions enjoying the sunshine on the rocks below and splashing in a little swimming hole. It was such an amazing place, and even though the sea lions were not in the cave when we went, we felt like it was worth every penny of the entrance fee. The cave and the surrounding walks/overlooks were spectacular!

Back in October before we headed to Portland we spent a few days on the Washington Coast at Long Beach. It was a really beautiful area and we had a ton of fun even though it was quite stormy the majority of the time we were there.

It was Razor Clam Season and we thought we would try our luck. We did not have the necessary clamming gun which is a long tube that you shove down into the sand where you suspect a clam to be. Instead we only had a shovel which can be used successfully but is not as accurate as the gun. We headed out in the rain to see what we could dig up. You are supposed to go out at low tide and look for the clams at the waters edge. We were warned to be careful of sneaker waves that come up without warning and can be dangerous if they overtake you. My job was to be on the lookout for waves. The girls were to be on the lookout for clams which you find by spotting little volcano looking mounds with a hole in them after the wave recedes.  It was Jason's job to dig up the clams. We were not having much luck finding clams until we met this lovely gentleman who helped us spot them and even let us use his gun on the first couple.
We unfortunately never caught his name as not long after we found the first clam it began to hail on us! We took off running back to the truck. The girls and I stayed in the truck to warm up and Jason went back out for a little while to try is luck again. He ended up getting a few clams on his own with the shovel.
The next day was my birthday and I decided to sit the rainy, cold, clam dig out. Jason took the girls again though. Without my "expert" sneaker wave spotting ability they ended up getting soaked, but remained unharmed, and came home with a few clams to boot. We only had nine clams total from the two days which was not enough to make a full clam dinner, but I did enjoy a lovely clam chowder for my birthday dinner!

Well I have gotten behind on my posts of late, but I am going to attempt to catch up the next couple of days while we have a little breather. Right now we are in Porterville, CA visiting Jason's Mom, and we are so glad to be here. It has been quite an adventure thus far! The first part of our trip was a soggy one complete with huge storms along the Washington and Oregon Coast as well as more typical PNW drizzle while we were in Portland. We were so excited to hit some California sun and dry out a bit.





We started at the coast with the intention of driving down 101 along the coast until we hit the Bay area at which point we planned to turn inland and head toward Porterville. The Pacific Coast Highway is such a beautiful drive if you have the chance to take it. We picked up the 101 at Florence OR (more on that later) and headed south. Our first overnight stop in California was in Klamath at a little RV Resort called Chinook RV Resort located at 17465 Hwy 101. It is a Passport America park so we were able to stay for half off the posted rate. If you are not familiar with Passport America it is a travel club that you can join for $44 a year which allows its members to receive 50% off at participating camp/RV sites. Each site has its own rules as far as duration of stay, blackout periods, etc. All in all it is a great deal if you are looking for an inexpensive place to park your RV for a night or two. In our experience so far the majority of the sights have been basically a parking lot, not much to look at, but with full hookups and clean restrooms. Some offer other amenities as well such as laundry, cable, or internet. Chinook was one of the nicer ones we had stopped at. It is located right on the Klamath River. The spaces were larger and, though it was still very much a parking lot, the spaces were a bit roomier than some. We decided to stay only one night there as the internet connection did not work and we were hoping to get a bit of work done. The next morning we woke up and explored the area a bit before we left which was fun because it is surrounded by natural beauty from the river to the redwoods.


 We Left Klamath and continued down 101 enjoying the scenery along the way, for a bit that is until we began to notice that things were heading south. Our brand new bike rack that was designed to hold 4 bikes and had excellent reviews regarding its durability decided to crap out.We also noticed that our tail lights were not working on the trailer so we decided that we had better just get to Jason's moms where we can fix them. So we loaded all four bikes into the camper and headed out. I was supposed to be navigating and as anyone who knows me knows, I have ZERO sense of direction so I read the map wrong and we ended up going the wrong way. Like I mentioned earlier we had intended to continue down the coast until we hit the Bay area and then head inland, but my mistake meant that we were heading inland a bit earlier than we planned. We ended up on 36 which is a little mountain pass and quite beautiful were it not for the 10%grade, constant switchback turns, giant redwood trees lining the narrow lanes which gave way to dramatic cliff side drops and pea soup like fog! All in all we were only able to drive about 30 miles an hour which meant that our 200 mile drive took the entire day. By the end of it we were exhausted so we headed for the Walmart in Red Bluff where we could "camp" for free. So we scrambled over our bikes which took up all of the camper floor space and went to sleep at 7pm!
The next morning we got an early start as we were determined to make better time than the previous day. When low and behold we had a tire break apart so we found ourselves taking an unexpected detour to change out the tire in a nearby parking lot.

Well we finally got back on the road and made it to Porterville without further incident. We found a little RV resort here that is a bit rough around the edges but the people here seem nice and we are mostly going to be with Jason's mom anyway. It is nice to be catching up with our work after such an exciting trip! We are looking forward to visiting family, and will hopefully make a couple of sales as well.
I plan on adding some back posts over the week as well so come back and check in we had some fun experiences while on the coast that I am looking forward to sharing.

I am finally getting caught up on our art posting, yeah! I listed several more to our Etsy Page today. I still have several more to list, and of course we are taking more everyday, but I hope to get all of our older images listed this week. Here are some of my favorites I listed today: