Sequoia National Park- Day 4- July 11th

This is our last full day at Sequoia. The boys and girls did their own thing for most of the morning. Noah and Tim drove over to Crystal Cave to see the cave here in the park. The girls and I swore off caves last summer so we were out. Tim drove to the cave and then they had a little hike down to the cave…on the way a snake jumped out in front of them and Tim said "snake!" and he turned around and Noah had run away. I'm glad I didn't make that trip…snakes and caves are not for me! They had fun though and said it was pretty neat. The girls and I spent the morning at the campground visitors center and market doing laundry and taking showers. I didn't realize how far it was from our site until I was carrying 4 days' worth of laundry for 5 people and then I realized why they have a shuttle from our campground to the visitor's center. But we made it and while we waited for laundry we shopped, the girls got their ranger badges and we took in a ranger program with a table full of fur skins to touch. The ranger doing it was the bear expert from the program last night so Megan explained to her about the bear phobia and she helped a bit. Then it was back to camp for lunch and the boys came home soon after. Tim and I went for a trail run in the afternoon and then took the kids to the river for a little dip. The kids found some big sticks and made up a pretend game of Moses and Pharaoh which was really cute. Then we went back to the visitor's center to get some information on how to drive to Yosemite and for Noah to get his ranger badge. While there we saw a cute little fawn in the bushes. We had some more ice cream (yes, I know we have had ice cream every day!) and then headed back for some playing games at the camp site and just hanging out. Toward dusk there was a bear spotted in the campground so Noah, Tim and Leah went to check out the bear. And yet again, we had one last bear siting before bed...we took an evening walk around the campsite and I saw in the shadows of the river a bear... I called it and sure enough it was a mother and 2 cubs...they were crossing the river over a log. Tim and Noah got closer but Megan started into her panic attack this time with full out screaming (guess her little therapy session with the ranger didn't help) so I stayed back with her and Leah. No camera so no photos of that but it was so amazing to see the cute little cubs crossing the river! What a way to end our trip! Tomorrow morning we leave for Yosemite!