Vertical Fam Tour

Everything about this trip was Vertical. Vertical flights, vertical trees, vertical waterfalls, and definitely vertical mountains. It gave you a new impression of looking up.

My husband had started working for Delta Airlines so of course we had to take the first standbye trip as a family. Of course Gary, my husband, chose to stay home. So off with my adult children, Ammie, Nicholas, Randi, and of course baby Gracie had to come along just because she had to.

I was excited about the trip but I also knew I was anticipating coming home a lot. I love home, and knowing that I am excited about seeing new places, every trip makes me realize how much I love my home.

It was also my birthday, June 24, I was excited about having my children to myself for my birthday. So we headed out on a 10:00 a.m. flight. Had plenty of room on the flight and lucky enough didn't get bumped off. Getting somewhere by plane is somewhat of a hassle than just packing the car and driving. As soon as we landed we had to find the rental car, find a hotel, get some munchies, etc. etc. so by the time we headed for Kings Canyon and the Sequoia National Forest it was early afternoon.

After a somewhat long drive to the Canyons we arrived at the main area, we checked out the lodge, visitor center, store, and definitely the restrooms. The visitor center directed us to a grove of sequoias. The kids were amazed, they loved it.

Then we headed for another grove of trees along a 26 mile whindy road, bad idea! We got about 20 miles into the drive, the kids kept getting car sick from the road and I kept getting sick from thinking I was going to go over the edge of thousands of feet down. Headed back to the hotel.

The kids got PF Chang take out for my birthday and we quickly hit the hay.

Grand Yosemite

Me playing with Gracie in the bed, waiting for all the sleepy heads to get up.

For some dumb reason I thought this park was going to be like so many other parks where you cruised in an hour, checked out things from your car for about an hour, and then continued to leave within an hour which meant a 3 hour tour. Stupid me Yosemite is huge, not just huge, but huge huge. As we came in I quickly asked the ranger at the ticket booth what was the best to see in a couple of hours, he first was going to tell me to go to the Mariposa Grove which he quickly retracted, did I catch hold of that retraction, no. So we headed towards the _______ lodge, that had a living museum where supposedly people were suppose to be wandering in period clothing through these very old buildings in this village. The only thing that was really open was a horseshoeing stall. We wandered there for about 30 minutes and then we decided we were going to take the shuttle to the Mariposa Grove. I was apprehensive about this since I wasn't sure the kids would enjoy a audio tour through another set of trees. It was so informative that the kids really liked it. It was about 1 1/2 hours long so with drive time to the grove and the tour, we have now wasted a good 3 to 4 hours. I don't believe it was all waste, but I just assumed everything else was relatively close, no.

Thank goodness someone didn't convince me to take a hike through the woods instead of the tour or we would have only see the trees for that day.

The tour takes you into the trees and explains how big they get, why they are so big, how the park service takes care of the trees with controlled burns, the pine cones, almost anything you really want to know about a sequoia but were to afraid to ask. It was great.

Then we headed off to the waterfalls. Somewhere in listening I thought someone said to go to Glacier Point. Half way up to Glacier Point I realized I didn't have the time I needed to get to the real place I wanted to be at which was in the Yosemite Valley. So when we go to the first main stop along Glacier Point I went to turn around and I told the kids were going to just look out of the car and see what there was, thank goodness we did.

We turned the car around and screamed down this canyon to get onto the right road into Yosemite Valley. Once you are into the valley you soon realize how large everything is. The waterfalls, the lodging, the river, the valley. It was amazing.

It is now 6:30 and in spite of Ammie's wishes of wanting to go into Yosemite Lodge and Museum, I realized I feared for my life and the children's lives of trying to go back along a very long, narrow, two lane, windy road with a shear cliff of thousands feet down on my side, plus dodge the wildlife along the way, before dark. It takes about 1 1/2 hours to go along this road and just as we got to the end of the road 8 buck deer jumped out in front of my car. Lucky enough I had enough braking time to stop and let them go bye.

I was so tired by the time we got to dinner, all I wanted was the hotel room. It didn't take long by the time we got home around 9:30 for me to snoring the kids out of the room.

Underground Italy

We had been scheduled to go out on the 1:00 flight but I had learned it was totally booked, but I thought at least I could try to get Nick on without us girls. I dropped Nick off at the airport and the girls and I drove around downtown Fresno to see what there was to see. Someone said that Fresno reminded them of an old immigrant farm town, with fruit orchards and vineyards everywhere, but not much else. So totally true. Fresno is very Hispanic, in fact so Hispanic we weren't sure we even saw a African American even in the town little alone a white person. Someone also mentioned there was a outside mall. The outside mall consisted of course Hispanic stores of all sorts, with covered bars on the windows and doors. I kept on driving in hopes the girls would ignore the outside mall, but they kept on requesting me to stop and do some shopping. The people in the store were very nice, but you could tell once you noticed there was three white people with a white baby in their store, that we were definitely the gossip session of the day.

Lucky enough for me my son called to tell me that he didn't make it on the plane and so we left and picked him up, checked into the hotel and then had to decide what to do for the rest of the day. Again in spite of Ammie's pleas to go back to Yosemite, (all I could see was us going off that windy road and dying), I said no, but we found out from several people that there was the "Underground Gardens." http://www.undergroundgardens.com/

In a nutshell, the underground gardens were started by an Italian man that left Italy in 1906 and once he got to Fresno bought a large piece of property to start a citrus orchard in. When he started digging in it he realized the dirt was made out of pan dirt which is dirt that has hardened into rock. He didn't know what to do and since he was hot in Fresno weather he decided to build his house underground. Then he thought maybe he could make some money off of a resort area if he dug out enough places for people to stay in. After approximately 50 years and 50 acres from a lot of digging out dirt with a pick, shovel and wheelbarrow, he died from pneumonia due to complications from a hernia (the irony). Even though most of the acres and over 50 rooms were sold off to developers, they did keep his main house intact. It was quite amazing.

After that we headed for the hotel to rest and get bored from wanting to be home. The next morning we headed for the airport at 5:00 a.m. to hit a 6:30 flight which was totally sold out. We then waited for the 10:00 flight which I barely shoved Nick onto the plane. The girls and I waited for the 1:00 flight, I then shoved Ammie, Gracie and Randi on to the plane and then at the very last minute I was able to get on. I had already surveyed all of the rental car agencies to rent a car to drive home. I couldn't take another night in Fresno. It was either that or drive to a bigger airport to head home.

All in all it turned out to be memories that will last for a long time. I love my children and I really had fun with them all. Now we need to plan the next holiday.