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Sweating in the scorching sun, we stood waiting in the middle of pretty much no where for the next bus back. It was 4:30pm.It was an hour's ride on the 10mph steep turning roads through the wild mountains to reach our car below. Sequoia National Park does qualify for the "no where" crown with absolutely no cellphone reception whatsoever!

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Earlier in the morning, we had decided to take the bus to reach the forest peaks which was an hour's uphill climb from the visitor center,so that we could save our car from the stressful ordeal. Turns out if your car broke down midway, it would take hours for help to arrive! Glad we took the public transport ...or so we thought!

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Finally our ride to leave arrived with Rules himself personified as the driver.He stated,25mph being the max speed limit, he was going to stick to it exactly.Over the entire journey, we were stopping at every turn out area giving way to all the backed up cars trying to go over the "prescribed" 25mph on the road. At one point we even gave way to another shuttle bus tailgating us! Every one in the bus was looking at one another in disbelief to deny what happened!

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 The hot weather, the A/C (so called) was running overtime with temperatures (in F) soaring up to triple digits. After reaching the foothills,we would still have a 4 hour car journey back home.With a toddler,that was seeming almost impossible since he was already exhausted. No sleep, no food, no games, no pacifier, nothing seemed to cool him down on this tortoise ride. Alas, the driver carried on in his snail's pace. People on bicycles seemed to overtake us and sneer at our fate. DS was bawling continuously as if sending a silent rebellion to the driver to move faster. As desperate parents, we opened up his stroller and put him on there with periodic rocking motions to soothe him. He started to somewhat calm down but the driver decided to give a 15 minute restroom break at the foothills. This meant turning down the A/C which sent our son back to bawling. We were hardly a couple miles away from our car but struck hopelessly.

 

The golden moment arrived as we reached our car. It was 6pm! Our original ETA was 5:30pm! We were so relieved to be out of the bus. Everyone bade goodbyes excitedly as they realized the baby was leaving.

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