Sequoia Treehouse

Sequoia… what can one say…

For those of you who want to know how the Sequoia Treehouse came to be… read on…

We vacationed in Sequoia National Park in California in our early years of marriage. We didn’t have
much money… I mean we saved pennies to buy a maybe once a month frosty ice cream cone! But
after a little while we managed to save enough money to take our first vacation!

We checked into our cabin, now mind you it had the bare minimum a full size bed (you know the old
fashioned size that in the “OLD” Days everyone slept in… well that or a Twin! ) Kitchen was basically
an outside firepit and you brought your own ice chest. We were young, so our expectations were
rather low.
We arrived at pitch dark and could barely see the cabin, much less the trail to it! When we checked
in with the ranger he warned us about the bears and instructed us on how to store food and that it
was against the law to leave food exposed, even inside of the cabin! So I basically didn’t get any
sleep the first night, as I was convinced I could hear bears outside the cabin!

Anyway… we woke up the next morning with the smell of pine in the air and freezing our tootsies off,
but I was determined to set up our breakfast (cereal ) outside on the picnic bench. Don was in the
shower (yes the cabin at least had indoor plumbing. ) I proceeded to take everything outside
including the ice chest. I’m sitting there waiting and waiting on Don, so I start exploring around the
cabin and I see that there is a trail right behind the cabin and it has a sign with an arrow that says,
“Sunset Rock-3 Miles”. I’m so excited and just at that minute Don walks around the corner looking
for me. I point to the sign and he says, “Well lets go see it!” So off we go.

We followed the uphill trail that wound itself through huge trees which abruptly ended in front of a
HUGE Boulder, which had a flat spot on top. I’d say the boulder was like the size of a modest house
and the flat spot was maybe 10’ x 10’. At one end of the boulder it looked like rain had washed it away,
so that is how we climbed up the gradual incline to the flat spot.

Once on top you could see the wooded valley below and across the valley there was the top of a
mountain range that seemed to be straight across from our boulder. The vista was breathtaking. We
sat and I don’t know probably stayed there an hour or so, just enjoying the view. When we went to
leave we decided that we’d hike back later so we could watch the sunset.
Anyway, we are about ½ way back to the cabin, Don says “Hey, we missed breakfast!” I think
geez… I forgot to put the ice chest back in the cabin before we left. I don’t say anything to him, as I
know that he is going to freak out, just because of the lecture we got the night before.
Well… we get back to the cabin and there sits a Forest Ranger on top of our picnic table. He is
surrounded by food wrappers and our metal ice chest is in pieces! He slowly gets off the table and I
swear he looked like a giant and the closer he got the bigger he grew! I start explaining how I got
sidetracked because Don had taken so long in the shower and I started exploring around the cabin
and got so excited when I saw the trail, then Don appeared and off we went and that I totally forgot
about the ice chest and our cereal, but I had every intention of putting it back in the cabin after we
had breakfast. I mean I just babbled on and on… all the while he just stared at me. I honestly
thought I was going to jail!

Very calmly he proceeds to tell us about how aggressive the bears are. Don says it won’t happen
again and the Ranger broke into a smile and points at me and says, “I got one of those too”! All this
is going on and I’m thinking… Hey I’m standing right here!

Oh the story doesn’t end there…the next evening we pack our blanket and dinner (PB & J’s-since that
is basically all that we have left after the bear episode ) and hike back to Sunset Rock. We got there
about 30 minutes early, as we wanted to make sure that we didn’t miss the sun setting. We spread
our blanket out and ate our sandwiches and are taking in the valley below with the birds soaring
below us, which was amazing. The next thing we know it is dusk and we realize that we missed the
sunset!
So on our last night… once again we pack our PB & amp;Js and hike to Sunset Rock. I swear we get to
the top of the rock, place our blanket down and the show began. It was amazing… there were a few
clouds in the sky and they were turning from pink to purple to gold, it was like rainbow clouds! I
honestly thought that the show was just going to be watching the sun go down behind the mountain,
but it was so much more.

We hike back to the cabin, Don takes his backpack off and says, “Hey! We forgot to eat dinner!”
What can I say… I guess I can only focus on one magical moment at a time!
You know we didn’t have a lot of money, but that vacation has just as many fond memories as any of
our other ones, matter a fact I’d put it in the top 5!
So our wish for you is that you too will create your own wonderful memories in your Sequoia
Treehouse. FYI… we don’t have any bears here, so sleep tight!