A Week To Just Play

Warning: Lots of photos...


Jared was at EFY in Santa Barbara. The plan was to drive him there, stay in Huntington Beach with a friend. What shall I do for a week? Hmmm... How about camping? My friend Rosemary and I put some necessities and a tent in my car just in case we could pull it off. We were hoping to get to Sequoia National Park, neither of us has ever seen the Giant Redwoods, Bucket list check :)

After leaving Jared on the beautiful Santa Barbara campus, Rose and I explored the Old Mission at Santa Barbara. "Founded by the Franciscan Friar Fermín de Lasuén on the Feast of St. Barbara, December 4th, 1786, Old Mission Santa Barbara, also known as the Queen of the Missions."The weather was very pleasant, not too many tourists and we had no schedule to stick to. Sounds like the beginning to a great week.

Fig Tree in the Cemetery

Chapel

"Cemetery (1789) - Santa Barbara's culturally diverse early settlers are buried here as well as approximately 4,000 Chumash Indians, including Joana Maria, the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island. Her life is portrayed in the book "Island of the Blue Dolphins." She was buried here in 1853 (location unknown today)." (santabarbara.com)

Beautiful View of the Pacific Ocean

Now, off to the Sequoia National Park. Rose and I met while we were living in Virginia. We became fast and forever friends and found that we enjoyed many of the same things. One of those things was girls camp. This is going to be our own camping fun and following our own schedule, with just  ourselves to keep in line :) 

Post Office, along the Ventura Highway 

Giant Redwoods

We wanted to see the sunset and the best spot was on Moro Rock with a 360° view. It has a 797-foot-long stairway following natural ledges and crevices. It has 400 steps that lead to the summit. It was beautiful, peaceful and a perfect ending to a great day. 

Tokopah Falls Trail was a fun hike surrounded by God's beauty. At the top of the hike was a fairly gentle stream of snow melt. The places we stopped to cool our toes would have been completely submerged with cold snow melted water during the spring's run off.

Mustang Clover

Crimson Columbine

Black Bear (yes, he looks brown) crossing our path, yikes!

Moss covered pine

Another Brown Bear spotted on our path

We had a fabulous time exploring the Giant Redwoods, the views of the Great Western Divide at Moro Rock, the quiet that non-existent cell tower phones bring, the smells of pine trees and of course yummy S'mores around a campfire with a best friend.

Up next: 

Forest Lawn Memorial Parks and Mortuary Exhibits