Day 27 ~ Sequoia National Park ~ Day 1

Day 27 ~ Sequoia ~ Day 1 ~ A Surprise at the end of the day…..

Today we moved from Yosemite to Sequoia.  I guess I was eager to leave the campground because the showers and sinks only had cold water, and it was really dirty.  I don’t know why I thought going farther south in California was going to get better.  The farther south we have traveled in California the worse our living conditions have become.  Not only does this KOA have dirt and filth…..Now we can’t even drink the water.  The nitrate level is too high.  Sorry, but I really think that should have been disclosed before we paid money for reservations. 

So our first item of business was getting to a Wal-Mart (not anywhere close to the campground) and buying 14 gallons of distilled water to drink.  It is very hot and dry here.  Very hot.  105 degrees when we got here.  So of all the places we have been, we need water the most at this place.  Natalie lost her mechanical pencil lead and kneaded eraser too, so she was thrilled to go to Wal-Mart and replace them.  She has spent the day’s car ride sketching away in her journal now that she has a pencil and eraser again.  It is kind of like a more sophisticated version of her avid coloring when we were staying in Vero Beach, FL.  Even though the kids have bigger bodies, they are still really the same little people they were when they were 4 and 5!

After messing around with Wal-Mart, we weren’t sure if we should head all the way out to Sequoia National Park because this park is even farther from the camp site than the last!  We decided to go anyway.  I am really glad we did, because even though we didn’t get a chance to eat dinner until 11:00 PM at McDonalds, we saw some gripping sights. 

Our drive there looked like farm ground in Indiana, so I was not sure how all this was going to turn into mountains and forests, but it was all hidden behind the haze.   First we saw mountains that looked like this: 

Sierra Nevadas

Then we had lots of twisty-turny roads again.

I still couldn’t believe that this dry parched land was going to turn into forest. Even after reaching the Visitors’ Center it still didn’t look like a forest.  We chatted with a quirky, young ranger about pine cones and bears.  He said that we would see bears in this park.  We were still skeptical because that is what everyone said about Yellowstone and Yosemite, but we could hardly find a bear.  At one point, Mike said he was going to strap a salmon on the front of the car to try to lure a bear out.  I think there are just too many people around those parks to see the bears anymore.
 

Stopped for a photo at this breathtaking rock.  I wish Mike wouldn’t climb on the top of dangerous places like that……He does it for a living, but I don’t usually witness such behavior first hand on a daily basis….





Tunnel Rock with the Family

I took this beautiful photo at a lookout point, but was still skeptical of seeing a forest.  It looked like dry mountain as far as the eye could see.



 

Mike said this is where the bear went over the mountain…..
 

Mike Pointed Out that this Sign Indicates Where "The Bear Came Over the Mountain to See What He Could See."

Then, at last, we drove into the forest!  As we ascended the mountain, the temperature dropped  30 degrees! It was 105 down where we were camping, but only75 degrees in the Giant Forest.

I wish I could post a picture that truly does justice to what these trees look like......But because of their girth and height, it is impossible to capture their essence.

 

We took a paved trail to General Sherman.  General Sherman is the largest living thing in the world.  The soldiers who guarded the area in the 1800’s dubbed it General Sherman.  Massive.  No words.  I can’t even photograph these amazing miracles because it is impossible to capture their essence, girth, and height.  One branch has a diameter of 7 feet. I mixed up my vernacular as I often do and called it German Sherman.  The family hooted over that one.  So now it will always be known as the German Sherman Tree.



German Sherman

Cross Section of a Sequoia

Twin Trees

A Burned Out Hollow

We walked around the trail and explored many of these monoliths.  We all love these amazing trees.  The black marks on the tree trunks are from forest fires that burned, sometimes many hundreds of years ago.  Fire is a good thing for Giant Sequoias.  Their thick bark protects the tree from damage from most forest fires.  The fires get rid of competing trees, and the heat dries and opens the Sequoia pine cone to let the seeds fall to the ground.  The seeds fall into the fertile ash on the ground and make new trees.  Amazing.

Down the Hill

Up the HIll

Then we headed back to the “drive through” tree that we had missed on our way into the forest.  It took a while to curve around the forest to find this tree that actually was just cut out of the road by the CCC in the 30’s because it fell across the road in their way.  This hole was much, much bigger than the last tree we drove through, so Mike suggested that I drive through it, and he would take my picture this time.  I agreed because I haven’t driven a car now for 4 weeks! 

Our Car is Really, Really, Really, Really Dirty!!!!
 

Mike, being a smarty pants, put it in sideways.

I stopped to pick Mike up, but there was another car coming through, so Mike said to just circle around and pick him up on the other side…….????  Only there was no circle around to the other side……..Instead the kids and I were circling off the other way….on a one way road through the dense forest. With cars behind me.  Mike didn’t take his phone when he hopped out.  Now we were separated.  It would take a long, long time to drive all the way around and try to find the tree again, coming in from the other side.  I felt hopelessly lost and didn’t really know how to fix this situation.  Harrison was actually laughing!  He said, “Look Mom.  There is a bus coming from the other way, so it must actually be a two way road.  So I waved the cars behind me around and did a 16 point (Austin Powers) turn around in the middle of the road with a cliff on the side.  By the time we got back to the tree, Mike was gone.  Of course. Now how would we ever find him?  Desperate times call for desperate measures.  Get out of the car and yell for him……I knew he would probably be close enough to hear me, but on the other hand if I tried to drive around looking for him, it could take all night…..or the rest of my life.  So even though there were people standing around the tree, I got out of the car and yelled, “MICHAEL!”  From far, far away a faint familiar melodious voice yelled back my name!  I yelled, “Come back to the tree!”  Even though the people were probably laughing at the weirdoes, who were lost, when Mike got back to the car and hugged me, laughing, I felt like we were finally home even though we had come 6,000 miles from home. 

 

We were getting desperately hungry by now with no food available but nuts and dried fruit that we had in the back of the car.  There might have been a restaurant somewhere at a lodge, but we weren’t close to any.  So we started back for Visalia, which was at least an hour drive back.  As we wound our way back down the mountain through the dry landscape, we found the bear that went over the mountain!  This was a much better sighting than at any of the big parks.  We had the bear all to ourselves.  He was charming.  Mike always likens himself to being a bear.  So we all had a good laugh when Natalie said, “Look Daddy!  He is eating salad!”  Mike isn’t a big salad fan. 

Up Next:  Kings Canyon and More Sequoia