No visit to California is complete without seeing the giant Redwoods, so as we completed our detour loop to Bodie and Manzanar (on the way to San Francisco), we made one last stop in Sequoia and Kings Canyon.

I had planned for us to just drive into King’s Canyon and see the General Grant tree, which is the third largest in the world. Since we were short on time and had only another day or so to get to San Francisco, coming in on 180 and visiting just General Grant and the surrounding area seemed like a smart idea. Somewhere along the line, I lost my mind and decided I should just drive through Sequoia since I was coming from the south anyway. We could stop a couple times and see the other largest trees, including General Sherman.

BUT YOU DON’T JUST DRIVE THROUGH SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK!

It is a wickedly winding (though beautiful) road before you even get to the park entrance on the south end of Sequoia. Then it’s a two-hour switchback drive through Sequoia to get to Kings Canyon. AND there’s road construction this summer which added another hour of wait time.

So we did a U-turn, drove many miles back out to the highway, skirted the park and came into King’s Canyon, as I had originally planned. It was fantastic:)

We walked the trail up to General Grant and inside a hollowed-out trunk of a fallen Redwood. This is an experience in perspective!!

Trip West 2010 Series:
Badlands
1880’s Town -Murdo, SD
Black Hills, South Dakota
Yellowstone National Park
Family Search in Temple Square, Salt Lake City
Ghost Towns, Wyoming and California
Manzanar War Relocation Center
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks

As my daughter and I continued our journey to the Pacific, we decided to go out of our way to include a visit to the Manzanar National Historic Site, near Sequoia National Park

Here’s a brief description of Manzanar’s history, from the National Park Service:

In 1942, the United States government ordered more than 110,000 men, women, and children to leave their homes and detained them in remote, military-style camps. Manzanar War Relocation Center was one of ten camps where Japanese American citizens and resident Japanese aliens were interned during World War II.

This was a different kind of history than we’d been learning about — throughout our trip West, we’d seen mostly 1880’s Gold Rush sites. And I probably wouldn’t have noticed this understated historical site in our guidebook, except that my daughter had just read the book, Manzanar, in her literature course. It’s a poignant story about a girl who lived in Manzanar.

We drove a long ways out of the way to visit Manzanar (and Bodie ghost town), but it was worth it for us. The grounds are mostly vacant, but you can take a self-guided auto tour to see where the foundations for the buildings that once stood.

They’re in the process of building a replica barracks building and excavating drifted sand to reveal the beautiful gardens the Japanese-Americans built while they were interned at Manzanar. The museum inside the original auditorium is a well-done and thoughtful presentation of life inside the camp, the political storm brewing during that time in our history, and the social implications of discrimination, racial profiling and fear.

(Admission-free, donations encouraged.)

Trip West 2010 Series:
Badlands
1880’s Town -Murdo, SD
Black Hills, South Dakota
Yellowstone National Park
Family Search in Temple Square, Salt Lake City
Ghost Towns, Wyoming and California
Manzanar War Relocation Center
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks

(Bodie Ghost Town, Bodie, California)

During our “Out-West Adventure” this summer, my kids really enjoyed exploring historically recreated sites like 1880’s Town (Murdo, SD) and Fort Bridger in Wyoming. But even more interesting were the true “Ghost Towns”, meaning these were historic towns once populated by residents living in the same location where the buildings are currently sitting. The two ghost towns we visited were South Pass City in Wyoming (southeast of Grand Tetons,) and Bodie in California (near Yosemite.)

South Pass City was a bustling town during the period of it’s last big gold rush in the 1880’s. South Pass rested on the main thoroughfare through the mountains on the Oregon Trail, and even in the 1930’s continued to sell gas and other traveler’s needs until highway 28 was built and bypassed the town. The restored and authentically furnished buildings give an excellent look at life in that time. They’ve also created well-made and interesting video histories to tell the stories of the town. ($2 admission.)

Bodie ghost town, near Yosemite National Park in California, is a large town maintained in a state of “arrested decay.” This means that the outsides of the buildings are treated by the State of California, to keep them from deteriorating further, but the insides of the buildings are generally left in whatever state they were abandoned. Stores have cash registers, wares, and broken chairs, all with a thick layer of dust. Broken windows are covered with a wire mesh to give you a glimpse of the ruin inside, as well as the family that once cooked meals in the kitchen. A milltown that grew to 10,000 residents when gold was discovered nearby, Bodie is now one of the largest true ghost towns remaining in the US. ($7 admission for adults, $5 for kids.)

Both of these ghost towns were well worth the extra driving we did to get there. Here are a few tips:

Prepare for long drives on dirt roads. Ghost towns are, well, deserted, so there generally aren’t well-paved roads leading to them. We drove seven miles on washboard gravel roads to get to Bodie.

Check your map and the website ahead of time to figure out the best route for your arrival and admission hours.

Watch carefully for signs. They aren’t always well-marked.

Consider creating a learning activity for your kids as they visit one or more ghost towns – scavenger hunt, guide books, read a biography. Throughout our 22-day journey, my daughter wrote a story set in the 1880’s, and had new ideas to add every time we stopped at a historical site.

Nevada is a good state for ghost towns. I didn’t realize this until we’d driven past it. Here’s an interactive map.

Trip West 2010 Series:
Badlands
1880’s Town -Murdo, SD
Black Hills, South Dakota
Yellowstone National Park
Family Search in Temple Square, Salt Lake City
Ghost Towns, Wyoming and California
Manzanar War Relocation Center
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks

This month’s Positively Speaking column focuses on the transition to school. To learn ways to help your child experience a good start to school this fall, please visit 5 Minutes for Mom.

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We still had one day before we would take my husband and son to the Salt Lake City airport and my daughter and I would continue on to California. It was raining anyway, so we thought we’d spend the day in Salt Lake City at Temple Square.

It’s a beautiful section of the city with amazing architecture and artwork, and Mormon missionaries at every turn, to help you find what you’re looking for. But the most remarkable part of our visit here, was the genealogy research we did — free of charge and with help from the Mormon nuns — at the Family Search Center.

All four of us found a spot in front of computers in the Family Search Center. The nuns helped us get started and we used all of their software and memberships to sites like ancestry.com. We researched both sides of our family and found ancestors back into Ireland and England, as well as many copies of the census as far back as 1880.

Here are some tips for using the fantastic Family Search resources when you’re visiting Temple Square:

Start at FamilySearch.org to plan your visit and followup before going to Temple Square.

Gather as much family information — maiden and married names, dates and places of birth — as you can prior to your visit, so you can make the most of your research at Temple Square.

Park at the public parking lot on the corner of North Temple and West Temple. It cost about $6 to park all day.

Ask a missionary/volunteer where to start. If you’re a newbie, they’ll probably send you to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building to get more individual guidance from the volunteers. If you’ve done this before, you can probably head right to the Family History Library, where there are several stories of artifacts to discover.

Purchase a copy card and print your discoveries to take home with you.

Continue your research close to home! Family Search centers throughout the globe are set up with free clinics to help you on your journey through genealogy.

Enjoy your adventures in genealogy! Be careful – it’s addicting!
Trip West 2010 Series:
Badlands
1880’s Town -Murdo, SD
Black Hills, South Dakota
Yellowstone National Park
Family Search in Temple Square, Salt Lake City
Ghost Towns, Wyoming and California
Manzanar War Relocation Center
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks