We are into the heat. The air conditioner is working overtime and we are finally in shorts - hopefully for the remainder of the trip. We had a relaxing day - had fresh strawberries and beer/milk as we marveled at the heat. We are at a place called Visalia and we're off to see more trees. Sequoias are the biggest in the world and man, are they huge!! We are camping just outside the park and thank goodness! We passed through fields and fields of oranges and lemons...these relatively small trees (maybe 7 feet tall and about the same wide) are chuck full of fruit. It seems a shame to see how many are on the ground! Then once inside the park, it was the craziest road we've ever been on! The road just kept climbing and climbing...about 7,000 feet. If you are afraid of heights, this isn't the road for you. It felt like we were in Costa Rica...so green and no firs/evergreens...we weren't sure we were in the right place! Then once we crossed over one mountain, we were into evergreens and big ones! To get a sense, look at the trees beside "General Sherman" (the world's biggest tree)...the ones beside "him" are big by our standards and look like twigs. We hiked around there for a while and forgot that it takes about 2 hours to get out of the national park so had a late night and stayed at now the ugliest campsite so far. The Beast was about 20 feet away from California's main highway. One good thing - Jack could look out the window and point out trucks!
Spent yesterday traveling to Death Valley. So far I feel like we are going to Hell Valley. The heat is crazy, the landscape is now desert conditions. There isn't many campgrounds and we went to California City to try and get a few groceries...sounds like a big place....but there were just crappy houses, blistering heat, dust, no trees or any businesses to speak of and of course, a McDonalds. We couldn't get out fast enough. It was a long travel day but the end was ok...just when we thought that we were not going to have any fresh food while in Death Valley, we got to a town that there was life again! Stores and everything. It was quite a funny feeling...so happy to see a Walmart that we stayed our first night in the parking lot! There is a Staples right beside it and found out that it has a wi-fi hot spot! Free camping and internet connectivity - what is better than that?
Off to Death Valley...Jack is in his seat with his usual trucks surrounding him - he's ready. Gotta go.
No comments:
Post a Comment