Click on a photo to enlarge it.
On Monday we drove up into Sequoia National Park. We bought a Golden Eagle Pass which covers everything with the word
"National" in it - not just the parks but monuments, historical sites etc, etc and is well worth the extra $15 for
the two of us.
We drove along the slow switchback roads higher and higher and it got colder and colder until it started to hail!! On
the way we saw a Mama Black bear and her cub and stopped to watch them eating.
Bears and hail at Sequoia National Park.
We went to the Giant Forest museum to learn about the giant Sequoia trees which are the largest living things on
Earth in terms of volume. They can grow up to 300 feet (100m) and can live to over 3000 years old. The eldest is
estimated to be 3500 years old.
We wanted to climb up hundreds of steps to get to Moro rock for views of the Great Western Divide but the hail
defeated us and we ran back to Winnie for shelter! We had a cuppa to wait for the weather to get better, but it
didn't! So we drove up to Lodgepole campground where we could park up for free (no facilities open yet). We put our
tarpaulin across our alcove window to stop most of the water getting in and watched as the hail turned into snow!
It was freezing!
On Tuesday we went to see the General Sherman Tree, supposedly the largest, in volume, in the World. We have to
write "supposedly" because the tree we saw in El Tule, Mexico was also supposed to be the largest! If you know which
is the largest then perhaps you could let us know!
The tree was surrounded by snow and we were surprised at how many people were there in this weather! It continued to
snow so we drove down into Kings Canyon National Park which is over 2000 feet (660m) lower in elevation.
Unfortunately we had to stop on the way down as smoke was pouring out from under our bonnet!
We stopped and realised it was coming from our front right brake!! We waited for it to cool down a bit but we'd
already done most of the downhill driving so we carried on to the end of the road. It certainly was warmer down in
the valley and it wasn't snowing! We found a spot in the National Forest to park up for the night.
On Wednesday we set off back along the road which is very scenic. Views from the road into the valley are spectacular
with roaring rivers, rugged peaks and steep granite cliffs. The waterfalls are impressive at this time of year.
On our way back up, we stopped to empty our 5 gallon extra tank of petrol into our main tank as we have to use it up
before we leave Winnie in storage for the summer. (That's another way of saying we ran out of petrol!!)
We drove out of the park and went to Fresno to get our brakes checked. Unfortunately the rotors weren't machined when
we had new brake pads put on so we have to live with the problem or get new brake pads! We then drove north towards
Yosemite and parked up just outside for the night.
On Thursday, we went to a library and used the internet for an hour. Then we "did" Yosemite National Park in record time -
4 hours!! Great view of Bridalveil falls and Yosemite falls (the highest in North America, supposedly!). The
campsites were all full so we had a nice hot shower for free and then drove back out on the north western side.
The road across Tioga Pass to the East was still closed.
Friday was another driving day heading north, and got up early on Saturday. We went to get petrol and had our usual
petrol problem again. It took us an hour to find someone who could get our air hose off (we weren't strong enough to
get it off). When we finally got to the road towards Lassen National Volcanic Monument we found out it was still
closed and wouldn't be opening for at least 2 weeks.
We're not really travelling at the ideal time, which is always going to be the problem with America. We're either too
early (March to May) or too late (October to December). The rest of the time we are in Mexico or Canada.
Our next destination was going to be Crater Lake Nat. Park in Oregon and then Mount Rainier in Washington. We quickly
got the books out and found out that these two are higher than Lassen, so would probably be closed until June aswell.
We gave up on the parks and headed for the coast. We stopped at an info centre to check road conditions and then took
a scenic mountain road over to the northern coast of California. We stopped a couple of times on the way - one of
them was to clean up the milk which had shot out of the fridge on a bend because we hadn't closed the fridge
properly!! We never learn!
The National Forest campgrounds were closed so we ended up just parking on the side of the road for the night. We
threw out the old schedule and made a new one for the coast!
On Sunday, we drove to Redwood National Park and stopped at the visitor centre for lunch. Then we drove to Lady Bird
Johnson Grove where some of the tallest Redwoods in the world are. We parked up at the car park and set off on the
short walk. But after 10 minutes the rain and the mud defeated us and we went back to Winnie.
We drove along the scenic coastal route through intermittent showers and went into Oregon. We were hoping the petrol
prices would be lower but we saw with dismay that they were the same price!! (But we're having a great time really!!!)
