Out of all the places we’ve been, and there are many more I plan on telling you about, this one is where I found my soul. We go in mid June and the weather is beautiful. The drive up to the top is very curvy and when we slowly start seeing the trees scattered here and there, I think, “WOW.” I hadn’t seen WOW yet. These trees are ENORMOUS and just so majestic. It makes you want to whisper when you are standing beside them. There are patches of light snow in a few places and we are able to make a few snowballs to throw at each other…in JUNE!

We ride around the park and find us a campsite and pitch our tent. I love tent camping. Something about being cocooned outdoors is so peaceful. We have inflatable mats that we slide into our connected sleeping bags and it is actually pretty comfy! We throw in our gear and take off to do some exploring.

There are hiking trails all over and, of course, we had to go see General Sherman. Going down was a breeze. Coming back up was not so nice for someone out of shape. Still worth it though.

They have a restaurant in the gift shop with your basic lunch type of food: burgers, fries, nachos, sandwiches, fruit, etc. We get burgers, fries, and a Coke and this is when we discover that they don’t like straws here. You must ask for one and get ready for a few unhappy looks when you do. The food was good and the gift shop had so many things to look at and buy. Being on a bike keeps your gift buying low though!

The temperature drops steadily here at night (but just look at that sky!!) We had not planned for this! My husband can NOT function without coffee in the mornings so we found this tiny little propane cook stove that he uses to heat up his coffee. This particular night, he fires it up and I gather some decent hand-sized rocks that we heat up to place in our sleeping bags. Surprisingly, this helped keep us warm when the temperature got down to the low 40’s (thank you Little House on the Prairie for the rock idea!)

I love this place and could come back year after year. This needs to be on everyone’s bucket list!