Day Two

Day two included seeing General Sherman, which was the fattest tree in the world. The top is dead, but the trunk continues to grow. I loved it. I tried to convince Brad to become a forest ranger. He and I could live in the forest, earn a living, I could blog about homeschooling in the great outdoors. But, he argued, there was no Carl's Junior in the forest, so it was a no-go. Sigh. Maybe in my next life. Even Kaeley said, "I'm a country girl." We also took a ranger-lead hike through the woods and learned how the Redwoods and Sequoias have survived all these hundreds of years. Nathan, of course, got friendly with the ranger. Thankfully we got a nice ranger. Nathan tried teaching her class a couple of times and asking really long-winded questions. He hung on for all he had and then crashed on the bus ride home. We saw a deer that day and a bear and her two cubs. That was very exciting! Sleep wasn't so good. I love sleeping with Simon. It's a very sweet thing to wake up to his first sleepy smiles, but when we're sharing a small air mattress out in the middle of no-where, things are different. I had to basically cradle him in the crook of my arm while we slept. This kept him warm and gave us all the room to sleep. My body would wake up every so often to let me know it was time to switch sides as this side was completely asleep. I would switch arms and fall asleep once the soreness of the other arm had worn off. The nights just got worse as the trip progressed. Oh well. Filth and not-the-same-sleep is part of camping right? I'll just keep adding to the "part of camping" list.