2012 SUMMER VACATION PART 1: The Log House Lodge and Silver city adventures

We spent a week away just in time for the new semester to start- it was such a  wonderful time to relax and enjoy our little family and for visiting our darling Dave and Mary Gillies...

This post will just feature our first days, we spent the first couple of days in Three Rivers, which is  a little town close to the Sequoia National Park. There is a couple (Tim and Mauriene Landry) who own a bed and breakfast and allow seminary couples to enjoy two nights there for free every year! What a blessing! Typically children can't really stay there (in the upstairs rooms because there isn't really space for them to play and there are steps etc but Jonathan was just small enough to make the cut since he isn't mobile yet! We were so thankful.)

Here are some pictures of our road trip up to Three Rivers- such beautiful areas and our lovely car!

Here are a few pictures of the Log House Lodge: (well of the room we stayed in...AND the rocking horse is the actual horse from the Mary Poppins movie!!! The husband (Tim Landry) works for Walt Disney company as an Imagineer and that is how they got the prop!) and a link to their site for more of their pictures: http://www.loghouselodge.com/

Each morning before heading out to explore the Sequoia National Park, Mauriene served up a delicious homemade breakfast and we got to share breakfast with other couples who were staying there at the same time. 

On the first morning that we set out to explore Sequoia, we took a 'slight' detour! hehe- actually we ended up all the way up the side of this mountain which was in fact in the park, but it was a side of it that had no roads that joined to the other parts of the park and it was verrry 'out of the way' and for the serious campers.

(There are major bear warnings in Sequoia- you are not allowed to leave any food in your car- or even scented things because bears will literally rip your car open looking for food! Eeeek- give me lions any day!) Anyway, so this side detour looked like BEAR territory to my over-active imagination!

After following this very windy, steep (Taryn=carsick) road, we finally discovered that we were in fact on the wrong road but enjoyed this little campsite called 'Silver City' pretty high up the mountain, where we had a coke, which helped to ease my intense feelings of motion sickness and took in the sights!

The entire road up was beautiful, but very steep and there were several parts which only one car could drive on at a time. I am glad that we went off the beaten path and discovered a different part of Sequoia that we would never otherwise have found! Here are some pictures from our time:

 I'll do part two of our trip in the next post, but it was such a blessing to get away and I wanted to share some of it with you in the meantime. Before we left I honestly had no idea how we would manage to start a new semester after such a busy summer, but by the time we got back, both Izak and I felt recharged and ready to get the show on the road! Praise the Lord for His grace. He knows our frame and provides for our needs- Matt 6:8b, "...your Father knows what you need before you ask Him." I am truly relieved by this truth.

Well, I hope to write part two soon! Leave a comment and please pray for us to have a productive and less stressful semester!

Lots of love,
Your Bakkes trio!