Tunnel Log in Sequoia National Park
We arrived in San Francisco on Saturday evening and met up with Jonathan, a friend from Louisville who had recently moved to the Bay Area. We ventured out to The Haight and found an Irish pub for Guinness and conversation with Jonathan and another friend of mine from college, Matt P. Our late night didn’t stop us from meeting up with a wonderful friend of mine from high school, Ryan, for an amazing brunch at OuterLands. Absolutely delicious! We started with fabulous homemade bread with pluot jam and great coffee, then I had the savory Dutch pancake with bacon and maple while Adam enjoyed a delectable egg sandwich with Gruyere and Anaheim pepper aoili. I can’t wait to go back!
Golden Gate Bridge
After brunch our day turned into a lazy Sunday afternoon of laundry, football on tv, and then a sightseeing trip of the city. We started with a walk at Golden Gate Bridge Park to see the bridge and the bay, stopping quickly at the Lands End Visitors Center along our walk. The weather was beautifully sunny which I knew not to take for granted in the Bay Area. Since it was so clear we drove up to Twin Peaks for a stunning view of the whole city and the ocean beyond. The sights are amazing and I find it so neat to see a city from above, really seeing how things are laid out. We then ventured back down to the water for a closer view of the Golden Gate Bridge and then found a new restaurant, Tortilla Heights for beer, salsa and chips, and tasty, warm food.
Monday morning we headed down to Santa Cruz for a quick stop
Jellies!
at a Patagonia outlet before heading on to the Monterey Bay Aquarium (Adam’s first aquarium). We spent hours looking at jelly fish, birds, and other creatures, and attended a few neat programs about sea life and jellies. We finished off the day with a burger and Oktoberfest at the Cannery Row Brewing Co where they had Game 7 of the National League pennant race on tv. It was neat to see the locals excited about their home team moving on to the World Series. We stayed in Selma, CA that night after a visit to Trader Joes to stock up on snacks and food.
Tuesday, October 23 we made our way into Kings Canyon National Park, a park we were actually not aware existed before this trip. Kings Canyon is connected to Sequoia National Park and both parks are unique in their offerings. We started in Kings Canyon at Grant Grove to see Grants Sequoia, one of the top 5 largest living trees in the world. Calvin Coolidge designated this tree as the “Nation’s Christmas Tree” in 1926. We also walked through the Fallen Monarch, a tree that fell hundreds of years ago and is tall enough to venture down inside. The story goes that some early loggers lived in this tree before building a cabin up the hill. It was a chilly day so we layered up, then returned the car to make some hot coffee and cider.
The Fallen Monarch
We drove into the canyon to Roads End and did a short hike along Kings River at Zumwalt Meadow. The trail was soft and quiet under our feet with fallen leaves and needles, and included an interesting suspended bridge. We camped that night at Convict Flats campground (I don’t know the origin of that name but the campsites were very nice). After making dinner and playing some cards on our 1-sided picnic table we ventured down the road a bit and startled some fellow campers who didn’t know we were around. We ended up joining them around their campfire and learning about their travels. Both couples are about our age and traveling around the States for a few months from Europe, one in a rented car and another in an RV. It was fun to chat with them and share suggestions about where to visit. We ended up running into one of the couples twice later on our trip, in Death Valley and then again in Bryce Canyon.
The largest tree in the world
Wednesday morning we drove into Sequoia National Park and saw the first snow on the ground of our trip. Funny that this happened in California… We stopped at the LodgePole Visitor Center and then journeyed to the General Sherman Tree, the largest tree in the world in width and weight. The tree is awe-inspiring, being so massive. I kept staring as we walked around it. Nearby was another fallen tree that you could walk through, and we hiked a few miles on the Congress Trail through the Giant Forest, seeing large trees and mule deer close in the quiet forest. We then hiked up Moro Rock, 400 steps and over 300 feet to the vista with great views of the Sierra Nevada and Sequoia National Park.
One of Adam’s favorite parts of this park was Tunnel Log, where the CCC carved out part of a fallen tree so you can drive through it. We also visited Crescent Meadow then drove out of the park in the dark to Brewbaker’s brew pub in Vidalia where we enjoyed a Sequoia Red and some fries with Sriracha aoili, mmm, tasty. We spent the night in a WalMart parking lot in Bakersfield, CA before driving to Death Valley National Park the next morning, the driest desert drive of our trip.
Artists Drive in Death Valley
Death Valley was a true surprise for us, and definitely a highlight. We weren’t planning to go as we were hoping to visit Yosemite National Park instead but a recent snow there had closed Tioga Pass and other roads, so it made sense to visit at another time. As we arrived in Death Valley we stopped to fill our gas tank, just in case. Luckily we only needed about 6 gallons as this gas station realized they had the power and cranked the price per gallon to $5.98, painful for me. After leaving the gas station, a sad coyote trotted into the road, obviously adept at begging for food from passing cars. We didn’t feed him but saw a few other coyotes in our time in the park doing the same thing. Wiley, they are.
We stopped in at the Stovepipe
Mosaic Canyon, Death Valley
Wells Visitors Center and talked to a great ranger who gave us lots of good hike suggestions and information about the park. We did a beautiful hike in Mosaic Canyon in the early evening, admiring the colors of the rock and the power of nature seeing the evidence of flash floods. The diverse landscape was fascinating and climbing over boulders in the trail made it more interesting. We camped that night at Emigrant and enjoyed a beautifully cool evening with a blanket of stars, pasta, hot chocolate, and a continuation of our Rummy500 game.
Golden Canyon, Death Valley
Awaking early the next morning provided a beautiful sunrise view over the mountains before hiking about 3 miles on gravel in Fall Canyon. We then ventured around Death Valley to Corkscrew Peak, the Death Valley Buttes, Hells Gate, Mud Canyon, Mustard Canyon, and the Harmony Borax Works. There’s so much to see in that park! We stopped in to the Furnace Creek Visitors Center where we learned a lot about the park, then hiked about 2.5miles in Golden Canyon, an interpretive trail.
Salt Flats at Badwater Basin
Badwater Basin is a popular spot in the park, being the lowest place in North America at 282 feet below sea level. We also hiked 1mile to Natural Bridge, then did the 9mile driving loop called Artist’s Drive, a highlight in late afternoon with the sunset colors and beautiful natural stone. That night we paid for a shower at the Furnace Creek Ranch (it was time) and wound our way through the park to Greenwater Canyon and a camping spot in the cool desert. We stared at the bright moon and stars in the supremely quiet night before tucking ourselves in to escape the 40 degree weather.
Early Saturday morning we drove up to Dante’s View for a view of much of the park including all sorts of beautiful colors and mountain ranges like the Panamint, Amargosa, and the tip of the Sierra Nevada range. It was windy but we looked for a while at the large alluvial fans (a new geology term for us) before heading back out to 190 and east to Las Vegas, driving through Pahrump, NV (anyone seen Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip?). In Vegas we stopped at In’N’Out Burger where Adam had his double animal style, then the Tenaya Creek Brewery for an oatmeal stout and some blogging time, then on to Big Dog’s Brewery for a Black Lab Stout and a pint glass. No western city visit would be complete without an REI, so we spent some time there too before heading east through Arizona to Utah.
Moneys on the Move 