Continued from Southern California Day 3.

Kids woke up super early this morning…I think maybe 4:30am. It was brutal keeping them quiet until it was actual time to get up and get ready. The regular parking lot for General Sherman is closed during the winter, there’s a park shuttle that starts running at 10am. There are supposed to be very limited parking at a different spot and some by a turnout on side of the road semi close to General Sherman.

At around 7am, when we started getting some sun light, we decided to just drive to General Sherman and try our luck with the limited parking. We can’t wait for 3 more hours with the kids in our hotel room with limited things to do and we can’t risk them getting their shoes wet again in the snow by letting them out to play this morning.

We are the only ones on the road this early.

 
The one icy patch we need to pass through. Slow and steady does it.

As it turns out, the limited parking by General Sherman has all been converted to handicapped parking. However, when we passed by the turnout on the way to the tree we did notice there were space to park our car at the turnout. I dropped off RL and the kids off at the trail entrance to General Sherman then I drove the car to park at the turnout maybe a quarter of a mile away.

After parking the car, I ran down to meet up with RL and the kids. Good thing it was all downhill and made the running easier. The trailhead for General Sherman is just ahead in this photo.

 
They are mostly just excited to be out of the hotel room and playing in the snow.

Snow was well compacted here and pretty icy.

Biggest tree in the world? Nope.

All they want to do is play in snow.

Biggest tree in the world? Yup, this is it!

Say cheese!

 

Not only is it the biggest tree in the world, it is also the biggest Christmas Tree in the world. There is no one around here at this early hour except for us. It’s Christmas today, and we bought some Christmas gifts for the kids to open under the biggest tree in the world. For about 15min, no one in the world can claim to have a bigger Christmas tree than us. Pretty cool I think.

Stuffed animals!! We had to hide them in our packs so the kids didn’t know they were gonna open presents today.

PL is now old enough to take photos for us. Nice.

Except she keeps on clicking away even after we are finished posing.

Such a massive tree, only would fit in the picture with super wide lens.

And here’s PL’s Lego biggest tree in the world compared to the real thing.

How cool is this. Biggest tree in the world and we don’t need to share it with anyone else right now. We are the only people here, kinda surprised. Thought there would be at least a few other people here since it’s almost 8am.

So quiet and peaceful.

I believe this is a sequoia pine cone, pretty small for the biggest tree in the world.

Now it’s time to head down the mountain. First, the uphill walk back to the car. Then back to our room to finish packing and check out.

Time to drive down the mountain now. Slow and steady through the ice.

Past forrest fire here.

I wonder how many RVs have run into these giant trees passing through them.

Most of the snow has disappeared at this altitude.

So sunny and beautiful.

He’s thinking about how to best annoy everyone in the whole car right now.

Seeing a lot more cars coming up the mountain today. So awesome that we missed all the crowds today.

Thinking too hard about how to annoy everyone caused him to fall asleep.

So picturesque.

As we descended towards the foot of the mountain, fog, again.

The fruit orchards.

It’s Christmas Day and almost all restaurants are closed, so gas station lunch it is!

Must get energy out.

Jump!

Family Christmas Lunch!!! The burritos were good, but the chicken strips were all too spicy.

Yummm.

Got about 7 hours of driving all day today, must keep going.

Oil fields again.

Children are tiring, physically and mentally.

Oh look, the fog is starting to lift.

As just light that, as soon as we started gaining some elevation up into the mountains, the fog is all gone and we’ve got the bluest sky again.

Back in LA and headed to visit my college friend RS.

Boom! Awesome hospitality from RS and AS!!

Great view from their back yard, such an awesome location.

Good to be able to catch up and stretch our legs. Maybe the kids can workout some energy before we put them back in the car.

Team Wife Beaters are number 1! RS and I played against our wives in corn hole and we beat our wives fair and square.

My kids are losing their shit now.

I think it’s time to call it and get back on the road. What an amazing short and sweet visit to some old friends.

Starting to lose daylight.

We are exhausted, mentally and physically. Kids are fussy, we are hungry. We found a Chinese restaurant that was open, but upon arriving, we realized it was mostly to do and it was located in the ghetto. Skip. Fuck it, we’ll just drive all the way to San Diego, check into our hotel, then figure out food. All of us are hangry at this point. Kinda sucks right about now.

Checked into our hotel in San Diego, and while RL was unpacking and trying to get the kids to settle down, I went out in search of dinner for everyone. Most of places are still closed since it’s Christmas Day, but I did find a pub close by that still has their kitchen open…except when I got back with food, everyone was too tired to eat anything and instead just went to bed.

At least we have a fridge in our room, so I just stuck all the hot food straight into the cold fridge. Maybe we’ll eat it tomorrow…who knows. Beat, it’s time to sleep off this exhaustion and frustration with kids and long day of driving.

To be continued at Southern California Day 5.