{"id":37752,"date":"2023-01-15T09:09:41","date_gmt":"2023-01-15T15:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/?page_id=37752"},"modified":"2023-01-15T09:27:04","modified_gmt":"2023-01-15T15:27:04","slug":"southern-california-day-4","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/?page_id=37752","title":{"rendered":"Southern California Day 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Southern California Day 3<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\nAt 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.<\/p>\n

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\nWe are the only ones on the road this early.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\"\"<\/a>
\nThe one icy patch we need to pass through. Slow and steady does it.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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\nAfter 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \u00a0\"\"<\/a>
\nThey are mostly just excited to be out of the hotel room and playing in the snow.<\/p>\n

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\nSnow was well compacted here and pretty icy.<\/p>\n

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\nBiggest tree in the world? Nope.<\/p>\n

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\nAll they want to do is play in snow.<\/p>\n

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\nBiggest tree in the world? Yup, this is it!<\/p>\n

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\nSay cheese!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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\nNot 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.<\/p>\n

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\nStuffed animals!! We had to hide them in our packs so the kids didn’t know they were gonna open presents today.<\/p>\n

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\nPL is now old enough to take photos for us. Nice.<\/p>\n

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\nExcept she keeps on clicking away even after we are finished posing.<\/p>\n

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\nSuch a massive tree, only would fit in the picture with super wide lens.<\/p>\n

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\nAnd here’s PL’s Lego biggest tree in the world compared to the real thing.<\/p>\n

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\nHow 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.<\/p>\n

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\nSo quiet and peaceful.<\/p>\n

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\nI believe this is a sequoia pine cone, pretty small for the biggest tree in the world.<\/p>\n

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\nNow 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.<\/p>\n

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\nTime to drive down the mountain now. Slow and steady through the ice.<\/p>\n

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\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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\nPast forrest fire here.<\/p>\n

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\nI wonder how many RVs have run into these giant trees passing through them.<\/p>\n

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\nMost of the snow has disappeared at this altitude.<\/p>\n

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\nSo sunny and beautiful.<\/p>\n

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\nHe’s thinking about how to best annoy everyone in the whole car right now.<\/p>\n

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\nSeeing a lot more cars coming up the mountain today. So awesome that we missed all the crowds today.<\/p>\n

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\nThinking too hard about how to annoy everyone caused him to fall asleep.<\/p>\n

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\nSo picturesque.<\/p>\n

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\nAs we descended towards the foot of the mountain, fog, again.<\/p>\n

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\nThe fruit orchards.<\/p>\n

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\nIt’s Christmas Day and almost all restaurants are closed, so gas station lunch it is!<\/p>\n

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\nMust get energy out.<\/p>\n

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\nJump!<\/p>\n

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\nFamily Christmas Lunch!!! The burritos were good, but the chicken strips were all too spicy.<\/p>\n

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\nYummm.<\/p>\n

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\nGot about 7 hours of driving all day today, must keep going.<\/p>\n

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\nOil fields again.<\/p>\n

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\nChildren are tiring, physically and mentally.<\/p>\n

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\nOh look, the fog is starting to lift.<\/p>\n

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\nAs 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.<\/p>\n

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\nBack in LA and headed to visit my college friend RS.<\/p>\n

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\nBoom! Awesome hospitality from RS and AS!!<\/p>\n

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\nGreat view from their back yard, such an awesome location.<\/p>\n

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\nGood 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.<\/p>\n

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\nTeam Wife Beaters are number 1! RS and I played against our wives in corn hole and we beat our wives fair and square.<\/p>\n

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\nMy kids are losing their shit now.<\/p>\n

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\nI think it’s time to call it and get back on the road. What an amazing short and sweet visit to some old friends.<\/p>\n

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\nStarting to lose daylight.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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\nChecked 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.<\/p>\n

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\nAt 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.<\/p>\n

To be continued at Southern California Day 5<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":37434,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-37752","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/37752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37752"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/37752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38367,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/37752\/revisions\/38367"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/37434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}