Allred Family Reunion: Camping in the Sequoias

Some of my favorite memories from growing up are of my family camping in Sequoia. I remember being in some class and the teacher told us all to close our eyes and picture the place that is the most relaxing to us. The image in my mind was of me lying in a tent in the afternoon in a Sequoia campsite with all the sounds of the woods, the wind and my family outside around me.

Camping with the family these days isn't what I would call relaxing, but it was definitely fun. And so, so wonderful to be back in Sequoia with all of my family. It really was a perfect Allred Family Reunion in the perfect place!

We arrived on Thursday early afternoon. We all set up our tents and got camp ready. Scott then introduced everyone to the game of Kube. 

 "Zachy to Norah. Come in Norah."

 After playing at camp for a while we hit the lake. We went to Hume Lake for the afternoon. It was more beautiful than I remember.

And the water was a lot colder than I remember.

There were some HUGE logs from fallen trees out in the water. All the kids and some of the dads had a great time playing on them and trying to make their way to standing on top before falling off.

Evan wins! King of the log!

We had a delicious dinner that night. Pastrami sandwiches warmed with melted cheese in the coals. Awesome idea. Here are all the helpers working on dinner.

And we all slept well in our tents through the night. Or some, outside of their tents. Amazing, right? Hint: Things did not go as well for most of us the next night.

In the morning, Scott and I took on cooking the traditional Allred camping breakfast, "Eggs In A Frame", for everyone. We've wisened up in all of our years of making this and cooked them over a camp stove instead of dad hunched over the top of a hot fire, smoke billowing in his face, sweat dripping down his head, flipping bacon and eggs with a stick over the griddle on the camp fire. Glory hallelujah!

Everyone put on their brand new blue Allred Family Reunion shirts that Jessica designed and had made and our group of the "bigger and better" Allred family invaded Sequoia National Park for the day. 

All the grandkids lined up in age order.

Oh, and we all have matching Toyotas too. 

Our kids found themselves confused between me and Teresa. So funny. Brielle told me that with our hair pulled back she can't tell who was who. And here is Ms. Kate all snuggled up to Teresa's legs thinking that it is me. 

This little threesome is ready for the hike. 

We started with a hike to the General Sherman tree, for old times sake. This tree is the largest living organism on earth. It was a nice, short walk along a paved trail through the Sequoia trees. I grew up seeing these trees, but found myself totally amazed at them seeing them again. They are so impressive in size and so beautiful. This was Scott's first time being there. It was neat to take him. 

Zach and his hiking buddies. Thank heaven for all his boy cousins!

Love this pic of Scott hiking Cakers through the Sequoias. 

Walking right through the middle of a tree!

Good ol' General Sherman standing in the background.

Fun with Uncle Evan - being pinned up to a tree. Jessica looks quite concerned. Thank you Jessica.

The Buchanan Clan with the General Sherman tree.

Our next stop for this group was the Thorpe's Log hike. What Jessica likes to call my "Anne of Green Gables" came out here for sure. It brought back so many memories of being there when I was young and it was just so beautiful. I love the fern floor and the massive red Sequoias all through the forest.

We started with another tradition of ours - Mom and Dad laying out food and everyone swarming around them grabbing whatever they could get their hands on.

Kids table looked a bit more orderly with Bryce and Serena in charge over there.

We set out on the hike to Thorpe's Log. We had no idea just how adventurous this little hike would turn out to be.

Ava's a real tree hugger. It's just so soft and spongey.

Cousins in a burned out Sequoia tree.

Scott led the kids in a cheer for seeing if our whole family could link hands and circle a Sequoia tree. Pretty sure we did it!

And this is when things got interesting on the trail. Half of our group was a little further up when we all noticed a bear cub coming through the trees right up to the trail right in between us. To tell the honest truth, I was was so scared. Half my kids were up ahead without me. There was a bear in the trail between us and I didn't know where the mama bear was. Was she going to come down that mountain toward us at any moment?

Kate in Bryce's arms and the bear right in front of them. I'm actually watching this from the other side of the bear about 100 yards away.

Then the bear comes up on the trail and starts trotting away from this group but directly toward me. I had Zachary and Ava. Our whole group started running away from it.

He finally went off of the trail enough for us to quickly carry all the kids ahead to catch up to everyone else. Whew. We were out of there safely. Or so we thought. Next thing we know, just minutes later, a swarm of hornets came buzzing around us and in a matter of seconds everyone was screaming. Jacob got bit, tore off his glasses, threw them down and went running full speed back down the trail screaming at the top of his lungs, "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!" I am still laughing thinking about it. 

Zachary was bit in the leg and was shrieking in my ear.

The survivors of the great hornet attack pointing to wear they received their injuries.

We all made it to Thorpe's log. One of us had pee running down her legs, but I won't mention names. Norah.

I think the kids were happy to be hiking back out of there.

This is one of the most vivid of my childhood memories. This meadow and climbing across the fallen logs in it. It is a peaceful, quiet and beautiful spot.

After a day of hiking, Grandma and Grandpa treated everyone to an ice cream cone at the general store and then back to camp for dinner and of course, our favorite, the campground campfire program! This one was a doozy. The ranger dressed as John Muir and told his life story for 1 1/2 hours. Good thing we had packs of Starbursts on hand. Love those campfire songs though.

After a nice visit from some girls from Poland that Evan picked up somewhere, we all went to bed. I think I might have fallen asleep at some point that night, but not for long. It took a long time to finally get to sleep in a tent full of our kids and their noises and the noises outside that just might have been bears coming to eat my kids. And then, Kate woke up. She was crying. Really crying. I tried to calm her down by holding her, getting her milk, etc. But by then she was awake enough to know she in some place VERY different and wasn't happy about it. So, she screamed and cried until our whole campsite was awake listening to her and I felt bad enough for all the other campsites around us as well. I put her in the van and started driving. We drove around from 2am to 3:30am. Not fun.

Miss Kate sure did want to make up for her awful episode in the morning though. She kept snuggling me so tight. I took that mean she was so sorry.

Apparently, everyone eventually forgave her too.

The girlies in their jammies.

Breakfast.

Possibly my favorite picture. A little morning campfire conversation with Zachary, Brandon and Aiden.

Bryce made us a delicious breakfast of cobbler in the dutch oven. He had the girls helping get that goodness going.

The breakfast supervisors.

Later that morning, this family reunion reached new heights. Sarah decided to really crank things up a notch in the parent-of-the-year competition. And she won. Camp needed to be cleaned up. All the kids had been wanting to work on being Junior Rangers through the National Forest Service. Soooooo, Sarah formed all children into one line and marched them all through the forest as they followed all her actions of leaping, spying, dancing, climbing, freezing and anything else you can think of. It was awesome to behold. Oh, and did I mention it all started with a little yoga?

We made it to the very same Visitor's Center where me and my brothers and sisters also became Junior Rangers and helped all the kids get working immediately on their own Junior Ranger program. They really were so excited. 

Zachary drawing pictures of the deer and bear and pine cones we saw. Surprisingly, they all look pretty similar.

Some field study. They needed to be alone and quiet to feel, listen, smell and touch the things around them. It was perfect.

Sniffing bark. This was serious business.

A last interview with the Ranger on duty.

And then, they were officially sworn in as Junior Rangers of Kings Canyon National Park. Yeah!!

Everyone went on one last walk through the Sequoia trees and then drove home tired and dirty to jump in the pool when we all got there. 

After a full afternoon of swimming (or one big bath for everyone as we rinsed our camping dirt off in mom and dad's pool), there was an awards ceremony. Dad came up with an award to present to each person from our days of camping. These three girls got the "Three Musketeers" award. Kate got the "Nightingale Award" and I go the award for driving the "Waaaambulance". Get it. It was fun for everyone.