Camp Nelson Lodge Springville

... therefore missing out on mash potato. Arrived at Sierra Lodge
around 8pm to find a nice little lodge in the middle of nowhere.

Up
at 9 and headed off to Sequoia. Got 10 mins into the beautiful park and
saw a MASSIVE tarantula crossing the road in front of us, Charlotte
wanted to go home. We spotted the tunnel rock just as Charlotte read
there were no gas stations in the park and we'd forgotten to fill up
Three Rivers, California, United States rich_charlotte

... again, and found our way through the streets of this foreign town to a lovely derelict building where the clear imprint of Trader Joe’s could be seen on the front where a sign was once fixed.

We did find a Starbucks and asked a girl where the nearest supermarket was, so armed with our large coffees we headed for 'Ralphs’ and got everything we needed. We continued our journey up into the mountains, driving miles and miles of ...

... very nicely.
Toady we left Kates to make our way to Las Vegas. The first leg was California's version of the Swiss Alps winding up the mountainside to get over and approach Death Valley. Took a detour from Kates instructions to avoid more bends and had lunch in a cute klittle town called Kernville at the Cracked Egg, breakfast their speciality.
Out of there to motor on down to ...

... read as worlds fattest tree! Ha ha!

Side note we saw two of the worlds largest this week. We saw the worlds largest tree and the worlds largest wind warm! Cool!

Sequoia trees are these big gigantic trees that grow for hundreds and hundreds of years and just get bigger and bigger. They are quite precious and only grow in certain climates but they grow through out the whole park. We were able to ...

... who only had to walk about 3 or 4 miles and had a liter of water with him. Sadly, 1 liter isn't nearly enough and his wife grew very concerned when he was a few hours late. She sent for rangers to help but by the time they found him, he was already dead after being out in the valley for about 5 hours. If White Sands looked like Arrakis, Death Valley felt like it. The rising heat distorted ...

... Rock". Weiter ging es auf den kurvigen Straßen hoch hinaus zum „Moro Rock“, bis auf 2000m Höhe. Der „Giant Forest“ mit dem berühmten „ Grand Sherman Tree“, dem world's largest living tree, ließ uns das kalte Wetter erträglich erscheinen. Hiernach führte uns unsere Route nach mehreren Meilen durch den angrenzenden Kings Canyon NP zu dem ...

... gerung gegen 17 Uhr an und wurden von dem hilfsbereiten Personal freundlichst empfangen. Jedoch wurde uns abgeraten, noch heute in den NP zu fahren. Deshalb taten wir das unvermeintliche: Bei wunderschönem Wetter einfach nur im Pool relaxen und den Tag ausklingen lassen.
Bis morgen.

... mit Eis und unserer Wenigkeit. Danach wurde unsere "Lisa" installiert (Navigationssystem) und unser erstes Reiseziel auf der Route hiess Sequoia National Forest . Nach einer 4.5h Autofahrt über Highways, kleine Städte und meilenweite Wüste und Einöde erreichten wir unser Ziel den Zeltplatz. Es war bereits am Eindunkeln und für uns hiess dass wir mussten uns beeilen. Folgendes musste noch erledigt werden: Den Grill zusammenschrauben, das Zelt ...

... winding roads. We drove to the end of the road in King's Canyon. We stopped at the roaring river falls on the way there. The rangers were doing some controlled burns in the area, so some trails were closed and the entire area was quite smoky. There's not too much specifically to say about King's Canyon/Sequoya...it is a pretty area, though.

... it was another tree. The enormity of these trees was breathtaking. We're still waiting for our baby sequoia to grow taller then 1 inch. Maybe someday. Our last day in the Sierra Nevadas was spent driving into Kings Canyon to the "end of the road". By this time, we were a bit crunched on time and needed to start heading back to the Pacific. Although we didn't get any hiking in, we did enjoy the spectacular views and hope to hit the trails in a future visit.