Today Hubbs and I headed up to the Sierras to Calavaras Big Tree State Park. It's in the Sierras, east of Arnold in Gold Country, about an hour and a half away from us. It has stands of giant sequoias that are just amazing in size. I've seen lots of big trees, even Muir Woods but they don't even begin to compare to the size of the trees we saw today.

Beaver Creek Bridge

Beaver Creek.


Howdy shadows.

The water was so clear you can see everything below the surface.

Hubbs pretending to be a bear. He said he wouldn't do it unless I did but you notice that I don't post the picture of me. He's too cute.

We saw lots of animals, birds, squirrels, chipmunks and butterflies but this is the only critter that would hold still long enough to me to take it's picture.

Finally the giant sequoia. So huge that pictures don't do justice. The largest one in the part is over 26 feet in diameter at 6 feet above the ground.

The closer you get to the trees the more amazing they are.

Looking at them straight up from the bottom blows your mind.

Huge right? Hubbs is 5'10" and this tree dwarfs him in both height and width.

The five mile hike was worth it to see these trees.

This tree had been hollowed out by fire and then it fell over. Standing inside of it I didn't have to duck at all.

These amazing pink flowers were growing besides the trial.

This is the Palace Hotel Tree. It burned a long time ago but is still alive. The fire hollowed out a hole that goes all the way to the top like a chimney.

The chimney out all the way out the top.

On the trail with Hubbs.

We took the Subaru, I just love this car.

We arrived at the park around 9:30 and started hiking by 9:50 and were back from our 5 miler at 12:30. By 1 the thunder headers were building. We never saw any lightening or heard any thunder but we figured it was time to head home.

Now we're home and watching John Wayne movies on TV. Tomorrow morning we're going to headed off and do some fly fishing about 45 min's away from home. Hubbs is going to fish and I'm going to knit or read or day dream...anything that involves me being relaxed.

How I spent my Saturday or 6 years in the making, I got a new car!

I've needed a new car for a long time, a really long time but it seemed like there was always something else that we needed more. So buying me a new car was low on the list. Hubbs and I started saving up and kept saving up and when my aunt passed away in February we inherited a little bit of money, not much but enough to be able to buy me a new car. I started doing research and testing driving everything that was in the price range of what we wanted to spend. I finally settled on a Subaru Outback. So off Hubbs and I went this morning to buy a new car.

Getting the keys!
Front end (you can see my old truck there on the right at the curb)

Passenger side

Back end

Driver Side

Dashboard

I love this car. It drives so smooth and you can't even feel the transmission change gears at all. Plus it gets great gas mileage. Now I can go where ever I want to go anytime I want to go! No more asking Hubbs if he needs to use his truck on any one day so that I can plan to use it. yay!

First of all, isn't my local library cute?! It's the tiniest library I've ever seen. Super cute.

I know the question that's on everyones mind is whether or not I actually got the card. I didn't. But!!! I have a very good excuse. Their computers were down today so I have to come back. I'm hoping that they will be back up tomorrow otherwise I will have to wait until Friday to try again. I'm not sure I can wait that long!

In other good news, I took my car in to get a smog done on it today. I don't normally take it myself. One of the reasons that I got married was so that I wouldn't have to deal with automotive stuff or take out the trash. lol But really Hubbs normally takes care of this kind of thing for me since it stress me out really bad. Hubbs had to work late today so I had to handle it myself like a grown up girl. Thankfully my old girl passed her smog test with flying colors and now I can pay the state the crazy fees they charge to keep her on the road. Dang old DMV. But at least it's handled! Go me!

Finally, some good news for the Dropped Stitch family. Hubbs and I have both been needing new cars for the last couple of years but with the state of the economy and our credit rating we've been holding off and trying to save up some cash to replace one or both vehicles. When Hubb's grandfather passed away a couple of years ago he left Hubbs some money that we've just been sitting on and saving.

Hubbs has been working over time and on call hours trying to save some extra money in order to replace the vehicles. Earlier this week he came a cross a great deal to replace his truck. We met up with the guy to take a look at his truck last night and it was everything and more that we had been looking for. We put a deposit on the truck and hope to have it in our drive by in a couple of weeks.

Hubbs is sooo excited. He's like a kid at Christmas! lol

Now we'll be able to go camping anytime we want to without having to see if we can borrow FIL's truck! Yay for that!