Saturday, April 9, 2016

Off to Sequoia National Park

Thursday April 7th- Friday April 8 (Days 496-497)


Off to the mountains


A last look at our campground near the town of Three Rivers.




On the way to the park we noticed a fantastic place for dinner...notice the place setting?



Climbing into Sequoia National Park along the General's Highway.  Up and up very windy roads.





Stopping at a sign just to see what we can see! Weather is getting cooler! Air is getting thinner as we climb above 6000 feet.


 



We took a short walk along the Big Trees Trail. We can't get the whole tree in the picture, of course. We liked ones such as this that looked like it was "birthing" a rock. Harris wanted to send a picture to Serenity, but Judy vetoed the idea.





A view across the meadow. At one time, this was a parking lot for a restaurant and cabin resort. Those have been removed and  the meadow is returning to its natural state.




Hey, we almost got all of this one!...or actually two...twin trees that make us think of our twins. We started calling them them the Keith and Tasha trees.




 This is a view of the General Sherman tree. It is billed as the largest tree in the world, if you count the total volume of wood. It's in the center of the picture. The top is dying....the sign says it has stopped growing up, but is still gaining girth...sort of like us old folks! General Sherman is estimated to be 2,200 years old. Its largest branch is almost seven feet in diameter. Ever year the tree grows enough new wood to produce a 60 foot tall tree of usual size.




A view of the largest tree from the bottom. Can you see the ant sized people near the trunk?










The trail to the General Sherman tree goes down and down and down, 275 feet, which is the size of the tree from top to bottom. Of course, what goes down must then go back up. Some enterprising soul wrote words of encouragement along the way.







We spent the night at a campground in Kings Canyon National Park which is connected to Sequoia National Park. Azalea campground was beautiful, and only one of 2 camping spots open this time of year. It's hard for us retirees to remember it's only March! (especially when it's sunny and warm).


On Friday we drove down and down and down the windy roads, eventually stopping in Fresno. Candy and Rick are buying a new camping rig, and it's being outfitted at the Sportmobile factory there and should be ready in May!



Then we decided we better drive a little faster and a little farther if we were to get to the coast to see our friend in Brookings this weekend. So we had to drive a bit into the night to get halfway there. We stopped at the River Bend RV in Healdsburg.

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