McKinley Grove (Big Trees!) + Dinkey Creek (Big Jumps!)

We woke up starved, so we got the boys clean--no easy task--and then headed into town for some breakfast. We went to a place called Renaldo's that had homemade donuts, amazing breakfast platters, and fancy coffee. We were in heaven. Well three of us were. Jiro was looking a little green and asked to go to the bathroom. I took him and he proceeded to throw up three times--mostly water--all in the toilet. I was simultaneously worried and thrilled. Worried he was really sick and thrilled that he was old enough to make it to the toilet. Thankfully once he was done he was magically back to normal. He returned to the table, ate his whole breakfast, half of Satchel's, and was asking for donuts on our way out!


After stuffing and caffeinating ourselves, we went back to the hotel, packed up, and then headed to McKinley Grove, home of some amazing giant sequoias.




Satchel and Jiro had a donut picnic.


The fallen one is covered in graffiti...


So we of course had to get in on that.


These suckers are big!


Me and the monkeys.


We have tons more pictures of big trees, but I want to move on to the crazy part of our day. Back at the Dinkey Creek campground, Warren showed the monkeys the cliff that everyone jumps off of. Surprisingly they begged to jump off of it.


Warren displayed the proper technique...but still managed to lose his goggles and one contact!


I still had my eyes on Warren when Jiro jumped, so I only saw his landing. The water below was really cold and when he came up he was desperate to get out. Satchel went next and although I snapped his picture it came out blurry. No doubt my hand was shaking! I never once considered jumping off of the cliff, for the record.


Next we walked upstream a bit to check out the natural water slides. They were really crowded so we opted to hike up the mountain a bit to our own private waterfall.


Jiro was still into jumping off of cliffs, although much smaller ones!


I could have spent all day there, but the monkeys were getting way too cold and again everyone was starved.


We went to the Dinkey Creek Inn to eat lunch but found the grill closed. We ended up heating up hot pockets in the store's microwave. Satchel and Jiro thought they were the most delicious things ever, and were shocked to learn that we could buy them in Memphis.

Next, Satchel and Warren did a little more fishing while I napped in the car and Jiro played his DS. Then we loaded up again and headed towards Sacramento to see Warren's oldest brother's family.