Kings Canyon, Sequoia and Yosemite

We headed to Kingsburg as a one stop shop to meet up with friends and to visit 3, yes 3 national parks. The RV park where we stayed definitely wasn't fancy, but the views were incredible. We were right on the river. I'm talking like 2 feet from the river. I quite literally pictured us floating down it the couple times it rained. There was a horse farm off of the walking trail, a tiny beach in front of our RV and just room to roam.

We'll start with our favorite pictures from our time in Kingsburg then move onto the fun times at the National Parks. Hope you'll stick with us on this post, it's a long but picture-heavy one. 

In Kingsburg, we were lucky enough to meet up with some Tucson friends and our kids were thrilled! Tucson was getting a bit to hot for them so they drove all the way to Kingsburg, CA to meet up with us before moving on to their next stop. There is a real lack of photos of the boys, welllll because they were playing all day and night practically and wouldn't slow down for anything. I was lucky if I could get them to come in to eat. 

 Niko even got to use his new bow that he'd gotten for Christmas!

1. Kings Canyon National Park was our first look at the massive Sequoia's and they were absolutely breathtaking. We explored it all, walked through and around the massive tree and pondered life by the lake where we were surprised by a family of deer that crept up on us less than 50 feet away.

2. We headed to Sequoia National Park with 2 sets of friends! The Maciel's made the trek up and seeing as though our fellow full-timing family friends are from an area near Kingsburg they came with us, too. We stopped at the first visitor center in the park for a picnic before diving in to the park and doing any hikes. We ended up being stuck behind a bunch of cops that pulled someone over and eventually ended up arresting someone. It was essentially a drug bust. The kids were sitting there staring and staring hard and making up their own stories-- it was hilarious to hear their dialogue. Reno later told someone "There were cops everywhere and the people had crack cocaine." I was like whaaaa?? You've watched too many COPS episodes. No one said anything about crack cocaine son. It was more like there were baggies full of pills and containers of marijuana that the officers found while searching the car and as he found them he lined them all up on the dashboard in plain sight (thank you, officer for providing that entertainment for our children). The park police cars had us blocked in so we had to wait until it was all said and done to get moving. It was quite the spectacle! The guy who was driving ended up being carted off to jail. The woman who was with him looked relieved and she got back in the car and put all the drugs away. It was WEIRD. I've never seen such a thing and we will likely never forget it, that's for sure!

It was Junior Ranger day so they did a huge swearing in at the Sentinel tree. 

Cayenne telling the park ranger her life story.

Evidence that winter wasn't far behind us

Cayenne and her butterfly wings

3. Yosemite National Park was our last stop before heading out of Kingsburg. We came, we saw and we only somewhat conquered. The place was PACKED. I am talking sit in traffic inside the park for an hour just to get to a visitor center or get anywhere for that matter type of packed. We saw people parked alongside the road and walking in the woods. I could only assume that they were just tired of sitting in traffic and figured 'Let's just get out and just walk!' It was National Park Day and Earth Day so my mental note here is don't ever go on either of those days. EVER! 

Luckily, before we got in the heart of the park we stopped and had a nice picnic on the river. Right after the river area was where the traffic nightmare began. When we finally made it to the visitor center we decided that we wouldn't go any further. We walked to Lower Yosemite Falls and ran through the showers that were created by the humongous falls. That was SO fun!

We got a few great pics and had a great time with friends, but my goodness we learned our lesson. The best part, in my anyway were the incredibly nice park rangers. They were amazing! I literally ran back from the falls hike to see if they could give us junior ranger books (it's kind-of a big deal to me) before they closed. I was late. They were already closed and only letting people out. I peeked my head in and explained that we had 5 kids trailing behind me all wanting to earn junior ranger badges. She proceeded to give me every. single. junior ranger book she could find. She also trusted me to only give the kids the badges and patches once they completed each book. Of course, Miss Park Ranger Ma'am. I walked out with a bag full of goodies- YES!!!

Next stop... Monterey!