Our Obsession with Big Stuff Knows No Bounds

We’d decided weeks ago to camp over Easter weekend.  Semana Santa (Holy Week) provided a nice four day weekend in the middle of the boys' two week Spring Break.  Last year, we had spent this same weekend camping, and Jacob had thrown up on Benjy.  We resolved to try again this year.  After all, what were the odds that someone would throw up two years in a row on Good Friday?  The only problem lay in that neither Chris nor I could commit to a destination. 

Wednesday night, with Chris on the computer and me with my nose in a guide book, we vowed not to sleep until plans for the next day were made. As he ruled out state park after state park due to lack of space available on a day’s notice, I flipped through various guide books, hope fading with each turning page. I was three-quarters of the way through Southern California Curiosities when a picture of the General Sherman leaped off the page. At 275 feet tall, the giant sequoia tree was only 4.5 hours away and arguably the largest living organism in the world. Chris and I had to meet him. It was our destiny.

What we failed to realize in that moment of excitement was that we had just sentenced ourselves to three days trapped in small, confined spaces with a rowdy dog and three grumpy children.

To say that the boys were underwhelmed at the prospect of seeing big trees would be putting it mildly. Only the toddler seemed enthusiastic, but even his excitement waned when two hours into our road trip we found ourselves inching along Interstate 5 in gridlocked L.A. traffic. The dog remained eager to hang his head out the window mile after tedious mile, but his constant pacing from passenger to driver’s side windows slowly began to threaten our sanity. After seven long hours, we reached our camping destination, and it took all my propriety as a lady not to throw myself to the ground Shawshank Redemption style, knees sinking into the earth and arms thrust towards heaven. If it had been raining, I’m not sure propriety would have won out.

The next day we set out to find the General Sherman. The Sequoia National Park lay just 30 miles from our campsite, which we had chosen based on its electricity, water, clean bathrooms and playground. The foresight to bring a space heater meant that only one child had slept splayed across me instead of three, and therefore, in comparison to other nights of camping, I felt pretty optimistic about the day’s prospects, until Benjy vomited and started complaining of ear pain.  At least he'd kept his puke to himself.

Perhaps that should have been the point that we waved the white flag of surrender, but if there’s one thing you’ll learn about me and Chris, it’s that we’re stubborn. We’d driven all that way to see the world’s largest tree, and bless God, we weren’t leaving there without having seen it. What we didn’t realize at that moment was that we would spend the entire day trapped in the car with a sick boy growing more feverish by the minute, a cranky toddler weary of riding, a know-it-all who had already decided big trees were lame and an overstimulated dog who spent every minute jonesing for his next dog to sniff or tree to pee on.

It was a long day, but at least we saw that damn tree. Did I mention it’s the world’s largest?

Us with a cross-section of a toppled tree

Tunnel through a downed Sequoia

The road used to go under this rock.

The next day as we were packing up our camping gear and mentally preparing ourselves for yet another day spent trapped inside our car with the kids and dog, a camping neighbor stopped by to chat. “You had two adults, three kids and a dog inside that tent?! You must be a close-knit family.”

Dude, you have no idea.