Camping Survivor Jen

I honestly have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed camping. For those of you who know me, camping was never a consideration for a vacation unless it meant sleeping on a bed in a hotel with a clean bathroom that included a shower & toilet.
We went camping in the Sequoias! This City girl survived camping! It was absolutely beautiful! We slept in a tent, didn't shower for 4 days BUT!! we had working toilets and potable water. The air was so clean that my hair was clean for over 4 days! I mean usually after the first day, my hair is greasy & gross. Tying it up would only make it look more awful. However, being in the woods w/no pollution, clean fresh air made a huge difference w/the hair! Absolutely manageable, clean and easy to style! The showering part was not bad actually. I thought I'd feel gross and grimey but truthfully, maybe b/c the weather wasn't hot & smoldering. We were at an elevation of about 7000 feet so the air was warm but cool. We didn't sweat bullets or get all smelly! (Sorry TMI!)
On the first day, we got there around 5ish so it was all setting up and getting everything settled. While Dave & the boys set up their tents, Kurt & I sprayed everyone down w/Off! so we wouldnt be bitten by mosquitoes. Grandma & Grandpa Gammell came to camp with us and their campsite was right next to ours. We were visited by chipmunks & a few deers wandering nearby. The deers are in their own worlds and they don't bother you whatsoever. The chipmunks are hyper little rodents eating pinecones, plants and constantly playing & wrestling w/each other! Soo part of nature, you know?
On the 2nd day, we visited the General Sherman & the neighboring Sequoia trees. We walked the Sherman trail to get there. Unfortunately the trail has stairs so pushing our jogger stroller w/Kurt in it was no fun! If you ever go there, do not bring your stroller! It made for a fun & exciting day to learn so much about these tall & beautiful sequoia trees! Later that night we had 3 bear encounters near our campsite. It seem like they kept going to the same campsite! I was friggen scared out of my mind b/c I never asked what to do if a bear were to trespass onto our site! However, everyone around us were making all kinds of noise. Pots & pans banging, people blowing whistles, hands clapping and people yelling, "Get out of here!". It was almost like we were ringing in the new year! ha! Hey, but it worked! It scared the bear and sent it back into the woods. For almost 15-20 minutes we had to constantly shine our flashlights at the bear to watch and make it known we were watching. Once it knew we were still 'watching' & we had our flashlight on it, it just walked away. At about 1am, there was a bear cub coming the down tree near the water spout where Dave was filling up our water container. Dave scared it back up into the tree. The people on that campground where the cub was in their tree was annoyed that Dave scared it. Apparently, it was climbing down the tree to get back into the woods. At 2:30am, we heard someone yell, "BEAR BEAR!". Instantly we got up to see through our tent where the bear was. We could hear everyone talking and making all kinds of noise to scare it away. I could tell it was near us as it was grunting and making this weird sound. Next thing we knew, it was walking right next to our tent. Dave & I started clapping our hands really loud and flashed our lights at the bear to get it back into the woods. With my heart pounding like mad and my hands clapping as loudly as possible, all I could do was hope that it won't do anything to us but just walk away. It took about 20 minutes or so to keep our flashlights on it to see how far it was in the woods. The bear cub was still in the tree though! We could only think that it was the mama bear that walked by us to come get her bear cub. Now we felt bad that we sent her away and the bear cub was still in the tree. After another hour, the mama bear made its way down again through another path (this time not the path next to our tent) and was able to get her cub to come down. As soon as the campers could hear cub climbing down from the tree and the mama bear was next to its cub, the campers started making noise to scare it away. We woke up to the flashlights flashing, pots banging and people yelling. We got up and followed the campers lights to make sure we could see where they were looking. This time the bears were way across from us and no where near our campground! What a night I tell you! I was so thankful that none of us got hurt and that Kurt never once woke up through the noise. I was soo worried that he'd wake up crying from the noise but he didn't stir a bit! The last thing we needed was a crying baby that would've kept everyone on the campground up all night after all the bear hiatus!
After the previous night's excitement, we woke up to a beautiful day! The weather was warm w/a light breeze. It was just perfect weather! We went to Grant Grove to see more Sequoia trees and to check out Grant Tree. The trail was easy to push the jogger stroller through. It was a short trail and no stairs this time! Seems to me the area where the Grant tree was located had prettier Sequoias! The area where the Grant tree is located has lots of lightning activities! A lot of the trees had lightning strikes on them and there were a few trees that were burned from being struck by lightning. Black burn marks were evidence on a lot of trees and most of them had more than 4-5 lightning burn marks! Who would've know the Grant tree is our National Christmas Tree?! Did you know? I didn't! Neither did Dave and his parents and they've been to the Sequoias for camping before! Oh! There was a fallen tree there too. The Fallen Monarch is hollowed out so you can walk through it. Amazing how wide it is that you can actually walk through it. We called it a night w/hot dogs, fritos boats & s'mores. I have never had a real s'mores and wasn't sure if graham cracker & choc w/marshmallow would be good. It wasn't until we started to run out of s'mores ingredients that I broke down and gave in to having one. I ate 2 and wanted more. Shoot those things are friggen GOOD! Someone was banging their pots & pans and flashing their lights sometime around 2am. We got up to see what was going on. Dave got out of the tent to check. Apparently the people banging their pots & pans thought they hear a bear again when it was a camper nearby was snoring. Talk about false alarm huh?
On our 4th day it was packing up and getting everything together to go home. We stopped by Tulare Outlets to get Kurt a pair of walking shoes from Stride Rite. I remember buying a pair of Jamies by Stride Rite for Bryce and they cost me $50.00+ at Nordys! Since then I vowed to never go to Nordys again after seeing them at the Stride Rite outlet. I paid 30.00 for Kurt's walking shoes! Ca-ching! That 20.00 paid for lunch at Togo's. I skipped on the sandwich and had me a huge ass Farmer's Market salad. Boy was I going through veggie withdrawls. A few more stops along the way at couple of Walmarts and Target (Dave buys hotwheels, Star Wars figures, & Disney's Pixar Cars)to hunt for toys and potty breaks, we got home early enough to shower, unpack, put the dirty laundry in the wash and headed out to a late night dinner at Norm's. We called it a night in our beds w/no bears to bother us. Camping was a blast! I can't wait to do it again! Next will be Mammoth!
You can view my pictures from our camping trip here (Facebook)