Spring break, four-day weekends, and summer vacation can be a jigsaw puzzle of moving pieces when kids are in the picture — a scramble to create memories and time away from the norm. For a long weekend last month, my family’s goal was to visit the snow. We also invited our youngest daughter’s cousin from Ventura, and our other daughter’s 15-year-old friend, who rode the train solo up from Los Angeles under Amtrak’s unaccompanied minors policy.
Since we hadn’t planned our trip well in advance, we quickly discovered that most of the rooms around snowy Big Bear were booked. So we switched our destination to Sequoia National Park ( visitsequoia.com ) — 230 miles from Santa Barbara — figuring we could play in the snow and, better yet, see the world’s largest trees, including General Sherman, the giant redwood that measures 275 feet tall, with a base diameter of 36 feet. We booked a room overlooking the Kaweah River.
As the weekend approached, my more practical better half checked the weather. Bad news: The road to the forest of the giants was closed because of snow. Feeling discouraged but not defeated — with our youngest already packed, two days before departure — we changed plans again, aiming for Frazier Park and Mount Pinos, about a two hour drive from home.