Continued from Southern California Day 2.

Breakfast. Kids woke up super early and we are tired.

Soon after breakfast we packed up and checked out. Heading out of town to see the biggest tree in the world. It’s Christmas Eve today, and traffic isn’t too bad at all.

So many mountains here and so many houses with awesome views.

We start climbing higher and higher.

Then we start going down down down.

Is that fog up ahead below us?

Yup.

California central valley up ahead, and it’s blanketed in fog/smog/dust/smoke.

So clear up in the mountains and down here at the valley floor, tons of fog.

Eventually clears up. Hey look, they still pump oil in California.

Tons and tons of fruit orchards over here. We saw mainly citrus fruits here.

I bet some people just pull off the side of the road and pick them to eat when they get hungry.

During a gas stop, I took a photo of our tire size since we’ll be needing to rent some snow chains later.

Somewhere along those snowy peaks are where we are headed. We’ve been on the road for 3 hours already since leaving LA. It’ll be another hour of two until we reach our destination. The kids have been pretty crazy in the car…

Beautiful over here.

Such blue sky.

Pit stop to rent some tire chains. It snowed a lot about a week ago up in the mountains, chains are not always required to be fitted, but they are required to be carried in the car in case conditions change.

Boop on the nose.

Apparently a lot of people are renting chains to go up into the mountain right now. This store had run out of most of the small sizes.

Test fitting for size. Fortunate for me, the X7 comes with giant wheels and tires, so they had some larger size chains that still fit the car.

Across the road from the chain rental place, you can see the snowy peaks.

Seems like we found a winner for the right chain size.

Now it’s my turn. Got some cardboard to lay on and they had me try to put it on myself.

Success. Don’t think we’ll need them, but now I can say I’ve fitted(one) tire chains on a car before.

Quick, but stressful, lunch. The kids have been in the car all morning and they’ve got energy pouring out of every pore and are driving us crazy.

Got a snow sled for snow play area up in the mountain. Hopefully we’ll be able to find a good sledding area.

OK kids, let’s just calm down and enjoy the ride. Dramamine for everyone on this car ride up the twisty mountain roads.

Not too much traffic on this road today, kinda nice.

Rocks, don’t fall on us.

Now high enough to see some snow. Kids were excited to see snow. We were excited to see snow.

Oh look, a sequoia!

They are just so massive.

Cars look like little toys next to the sequoia trees.

A little bit of an icy patch. The roads have been 95% clear of ice or snow, cool.

I am surprised that there aren’t more sequoias. Most of the trees here are just other types of pines and whatnot.

As you can see, it snowed quite a bit not too long ago. We lucked out with weather as it snowed a lot before we came here, and it’ll be snowing a lot after we leave here.

Finally reached Wuksachi Lodge to check in.

I guess this is dinner tonight.

While I was checking in, the kids were super excited to play on the snow banks in the parking lot. Who cares about the biggest tree in the world, let’s play with this white stuff! Despite the snow on the ground, the temperature is pretty comfortable, feels like somewhere in the 40s.

OK, our actual room is in a different building and it’s a little bit of a walk from the parking lot. They’ve got a luggage cart, but it wasn’t that useful because it needed to go over lots of uneven ground.

So much snow.

This will be a tough night. They don’t offer suites in the lodge, so all 5 of us will be sharing one room with a cot. We ended up putting the cot by one of the bed and having all 3 kids sleep next to one another.

The crazy kids needs to get some energy out, so we drove them to the snow play area not too far from the lodge. Oh look, they’ve got a hill for sledding.

Not this hill, this is just so the sled doesn’t fly off the edge…but that ain’t gonna stop PL for trying.

This is the hill, much longer run.

This side of the hill is even better. We spent quite a bit playing with snow and everyone taking turns sledding. It was awesome.

But eventually CL got cold and tired, so RL and her sat in the car and just rested.

These two still have tons of energy left, so they just kept on playing.

See, not that cold. Jacket not even zipped up.

This group had a giant cookout over here. They have a griddle and are making tacos. What an awesome idea.

Back at the room, time for a drink. It’s been a really rough day of travel. Kids are tired, but they are also wired from being in the car all day and have been bouncing around nonstop and sounding like a stampede.

Finally time for dinner. We took a walk in the dark to the restaurant located at the front desk building of the lodge.

This is kinda nice…as long as you don’t try to compare it to Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone.

Again, let’s not compare it to Old Faithful Inn.

Children, please calm down.

We showed up right when kitchen opened at 5 tonight and there was already a line. The line would grow much longer behind me.

Oh shit, there’s a special menu tonight, being Christmas Eve and all. I guess time to splurge, National Park Dining Style.

Thank god for ipad and headphones. Can’t emphasize how much the kids have been a handful today.

Beef, it’s what’s for dinner. And by that, I mean overcooked steak. Still ate it and enjoy it though. Dinner was nice because kids were on screen time so RL and I had a little bit of quiet.

Nice carpet selection at the lodge.

We put the kids to bed in the bedroom, and hid in the bathroom until the kids fall asleep. It took them a very long time and we had to warn them multiple times that they were being too loud in the hotel. What a long travel day with the kids.

This is probably the best pizza I’ve eaten in years, and it was just the kids’ leftover cold pizza. And I did it sitting at the edge of the bathtub. No joke, the pizza hit all the right spots tonight after that long ass day.

To be continued at Southern California Day 4.