On to the next major destination of our trip, Sequioa National Park. As we got closer, Mandy kept asking if I wanted to visit Visalia, California. The reason for her question is that my family lived there for a couple of years, about 30 yrs ago. Wow, has it really been that long? Yup. At first, I didn't think that I wanted to make the trip because it was about 30 minutes out of our way. As it turns out, we ended up staying the night in Visalia. I didn't think I had many memories from the time we lived there until we visited some familiar places. All the sudden, street names sounded familiar and I knew we were close to where my family lived. My brother helped me remember the exact address so we went there the next day. After seeing the old apartment, my elementary school and one of the lakes that we boated and learned to ski, a slew of memories came back. It is amazing how the human brain works. Thank you, Mandy, for encouraging to do it. I realized that even those two years were instrumental in shaping me into who I am today.

Ok, back to Sequioa. We enter the park and discover that access to the park is limited due to weather and snow. We can't get to the Sequioa trees without snow chains on our tires. Where the hell are we going to find those and which one of us is going to put them on and take them off? Yeah, we did't even bother. Now we are tremendously sad that Mandy will not see these giants. Instead, we opt for a hiking trail recommended by the park ranger. The hike is called Marble Falls and it is supposed to be a beautiful time of year for this hike. All we know at the beginning point is that it was roughly an eight mile round-trip hike.

As we make our way to the foot of the path we begin our 2-hour hike up the side of a mountain. The path we are following is about two feet wide and is a constant uphill the entire way to the falls. We dress warmly as it is quite cold in the mountains and we stop to take breaks along the way. On each stop, we take a couple of moments to just look around. The views are indescribable. We are disappointed with every picture that we take because it never seems to capture the beauty, All the while, we have not yet seen another human being on this path.

Lunch consisted of a couple of sandwiches on a rock overlooking a valley amongst three mountains. The air is brisk, the sun is shining and only the sounds of wind and birds are around us. About two-thirds of the way up, we began to really feel the strain from the constant hike upwards. Determined to actually see the falls kept us pushing forward. Nearing the falls, it began to rain and our path was getting cold and muddy. It was necessary for us to start really watching our footing. Finally, we made it to the falls and then understood why it was called "Marble Falls". The granite in which the falls washed over looked just like marble. At this point, there was nothing left to do but relish in the beauty of the falls and celebrate our arrival to our destination. One more mountain defeated!

Kasia wondering if her legs are going to fall off

Coming back down the mountain, we finally did run into some other people on the trail and now it was raining even harder. What took us two hours to hike up, took one hour to hike down and the constant and steep downhill was beginning to take a toll on our knees. I am not so sure that we would have finished this hike without the assistance of our hiking sticks. By the last 10 minutes of our hike, we were sore, tired, wet and ready for it to be over...longing for a hot tub.

Back in our car, the look of defeat crossed both of our faces but neither of us would have done it any differently. Experiencing the sheer beauty of the mountains and conquering this rigorous hike with a loved one simply cannot be matched.

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