Sunday, September 16
In life, sometimes you really need to go with your gut (or initial) instinct. I had looked at the map on my computer last night and decided that the best way to get to Visalia, California was to take a certain highway and then take a rural route. However, there was an alternative route that took a rural route first prior to a highway, which looked okay on the map, but I wasn’t sure how much elevation change would occur on the rural route. The GPS routed me on the second route and today for some strange reason I figured I’d take the second option – a bad choice. Instead of dropping 3000 feet on a highway with shoulders, we dropped 3000 feet on a narrow road with no shoulders. I’ve never in my life driven on such a twisty road. It took us well over an hour to go 30 miles. Sheri, of course, tried to remind me that the rural route didn’t look like the best option as I was making the turn, but I assured here that the rural route would be okay. After less than 10 miles I was apologizing to all of the passengers and handing out Dramamine. Prior to the roller coaster road, we did have fun in Kings Canyon park today hiking to a waterfall and hiking in a Sequoia grove. We saw the 3rd largest tree in the world (by volume), which happens to have the largest base circumference of 107 feet. Seth had the worst day today after an ankle twisting on a bike this morning he then re-injured the same ankle trying to jump from one rock to another at the waterfall. I personally wouldn’t have tried the leap he tried. He later agreed that he is sometimes too gutsy. Because of it, he stayed back in the RV when we went hiking in the Sequoia grove. Hopefully, he will be walking well by the time we get to San Diego. Tomorrow we travel to Los Angeles, but not into the city proper. We’re just passing through a suburb on our way to San Diego.
Saturday, September 15
We drove across the dry desert of Eastern California’s Sierra Nevada today to get from Yosemite down to Kings Canyon/Sequoia National Parks. As usual, it takes longer to drive the distance than you think because of the elevation changes so the drive was about 3 hours instead of 2. We made a decision to stay inside the park at a campground and forgo the modern luxuries of water and electric hook-ups. This allows us to be right where we want to be tomorrow morning and it allowed us the ability to attend an 8 pm ranger program within walking distance. Kings Canyon is somewhat like Yosemite with respect to the glacier valley they are preserving, but it is still unique in its own way. After talking to the ranger about Sequoia National Park and discovering that we couldn’t traverse some of the roads due to our size, we decided to skip that park. It’s known for its Sequoia groves, but there are also comparable groves in Kings Canyon and Yosemite.
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