I'm a bit behind on posting this. A stop over with many good friends to visit and amazing things to do is a great excuse though, right?
July 18th, after driving into California on rt 40 from Arizona, we were cautious on how hard we worked the truck. The temperature being a (again) hot 105 degrees, we worked our way up and down the road in the middle of the Mojave Desert. We decided once we arrived in Barstow we'd get a hotel room. We sadly broke our streak of non-fee boondocking spots. After a delivered pizza and a comfortable nights rest, we were on the road early to avoid the heat.
We drove up rt 58 to 198 and entered Sequoia National Park on a very steep, long, and tight switchback road.
The size of these trees was a site to see!
Will we fit?
Nope.
After getting my geek stamp and magnet (I'm now collecting magnets to attach to our stove top because Pete doesn't want to do stickers on the camper-poor sport!) at the visitors center we continued on into the Sierra National Forest to find our spot for the night.
We found a nice one complete with even a picnic table amongst the old gigantic redwoods.
We awoke early the next morning and decided to beat the hustle bustle of (other) tourists and go see King's Canyon National Park. The winding road descended and then climbed back up in elevation. It was a gorgeous morning.
The road.
We ate our breakfast at the outdated but very well maintained lodge area. Word of the wise, don't count on this cafe/restaurant area to serve anything more than elementary school lunch food. It was possibly the worst meal we have had this whole trip. We did get a kick out of the young gentleman taking orders and serving everyone though. He was filled to the brim with knowledge and (in my opinion at that early in the morning) excitement that he wanted to share with his guests.
We drove the short distance you can drive until the road ends and it turns to wilderness area.
The road leading out of King's Canyon.
We drove back into Sierra National Forest to find another spot for the evening.
After much searching we found one with many areas to disperse camp, and again, it came with some cattle.
The next day being Sunday, we decided to end our crammed weekend tour of California National Parks at Yosemite. I wasn't feeling all that hot that morning, maybe due to my questionable breakfast the day before at Kings Canyon....hmm. Therefore, I didn't take very many photos. We visited the visitors center and drove off in fabulous weather and what we did see was truly amazing.
That night we stayed our last night in Stanislaus National Forest. We had plans of meeting up in Napa Valley with our friends the following day.
On an end note to this post, I have to say we were very disappointed in the cleanliness of California's parks. Anywhere from the national parks to forests, there was trash everywhere, in spots where there was no toilet you'd come across used tampons, fecal matter, toilet paper, beer cans, glass, even people leaving full bags of garbage- obviously not willing to pack them out. I understand there are a lot of tourists to these, but we did not see this in any other western or eastern states thus far. It was hard to believe because there are so many Eco-friendly liberal people in this state, I thought they'd be the cleanest. We ended up cleaning up many sites. All I can do is shake my head.
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