Yosemite National Park

Monday, October 3

We got moving the next morning, took care of a few errands and then headed the few miles north into Yosemite National Park.

I hadn’t really felt a huge pull to come and visit this National Park – I had heard from some fellow travelers earlier in the summer that Yosemite can be like a parking lot in full summer. There are so many visitors to the park that it gets really hard to even move. Ick.

But in early October on a Monday morning, it was a beautiful time to go, and we were awestruck yet again with some gorgeous territory! Holey moley.

Along the popular road on the floor of the Yosemite Valley, we got out and took the short walk up to Bridalveil Fall, which was fairly dry and only a trickle this time of year.

We then parked the van and took a nice walk through Curry Village to stretch our legs, poke around and get some exercise. After that, it was on to walk up to Yosemite Falls, which were also a mere trickle of their springtime selves. 

Then we drove farther along the Valley Road to El Capitan, another massive granite cliff that is apparently a popular rock-climbing destination.

Since we were headed east out of Yosemite after our sightseeing, we took Highway 120/Tioga Road, which led us across the top half of the park. This road offered more fabulous scenery that I’m betting most visitors to Yosemite don’t get to see. I felt so lucky to have been driving this road – it was gorgeous!

Here’s a look along Yosemite Valley as we climbed.

Here are some vistas from Olmstead Point.

Here is lovely Tenaya Lake.

And here is a view across the beautiful Tuolumne Meadows.

And then as we got ready to exit the park, we crossed over the Tioga Pass, at an elevation of 9,945 feet. There were more spectacular views on the other side of that pass … as well as some snow and lots of cold weather! 

When we got to the small town of Lee Vining, we were treated to this pretty rainbow.

It was getting cold and dark, so we got gas in Lee Vining and continued our drive a bit farther south to Mammoth Lakes in the rain. We heard on the radio, though, that there was SNOW at 8,400 feet and above. We were at just over 7,000, so we had only (cold!) rain, but wow – how’s that for a shift? And a bit of a shock, to be honest.

I had packed hats, gloves and my warm tights into the van before I left Silver Spring, and I tell you, I was sooooo glad to have them. I never expected to be still on the road for winter weather, but it was here.

We spent a wet, chilly night on the campground in Mammoth Lakes and went to sleep reading more Potter. 

Quiet Day on Bass Lake by Yosemite National Park

Sunday, October 2

We took a quiet day this Sunday. I had been planning to go into Yosemite today, but based on our experience the previous day with chaos and late-night parties, the last place we wanted to be was a VERY popular national park on a gorgeous fall Sunday.

Instead, we chilled. I desperately needed a shower (shhhhhh, don't tell anyone, but yes, your personal hygiene does suffer sometimes while living a life on the road …), and so I took my first shower in the Champagne Chevy. I’m happy to say it was successful – everything worked well. I felt human again after my shower.

I read more Potter by the lake, caught up on many blog entries, made a few phone calls, cooked some dinner and then made an early night of it. 

Sequoia / King’s Canyon National Parks

Saturday, October 1

My morning started just like my night had ended – with lots of noise. Let’s hear it for kids playing just outside the van at 7.30 in the morning. Ouch. 

A national park campground on a weekend is clearly not a place to chill. Lesson learned.

And then I looked at the calendar – it was October 1^st. According to my original plans for this trip, I was supposed to be home yesterday. But I’m not – and that’s the fun of this trip. I’ve changed my plans, and it’s awesome. My tenants on Fleetwood Terrace have extended through the middle of October, and I hope to be home before the end of the month. Everything is copasetic. We can continue our dawdle across America ... J

We packed up the van and got ready for the day's dawdle, and we started off onto the Generals’ Highway through Sequoia National Park. We visited the Giant Forest (which contains five of the world’s ten largest trees) ... 

and the AutoLog, a massive sequoia tree onto which you used to be able to drive a car. (The tree has decomposed so much now, though, that it’s no longer possible to drive onto it.)  

We walked around at the Parker Group of sequoias ... 

and then drove to the nearby Tunnel Log. (No, the Champagne Chevy would not fit!)

After that it was on to El Moro, a huge granite dome in the center of the park with an elevation of 6,725 feet. Both Auggie and I climbed the staircase on El Moro, which took us to the tippy top of the dome and gave us fabulous views of the park, the mountains and the Great Western Divide. The staircase was originally built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps, and I gotta tell ya, I don’t think it would have been me up there on that rock laying those stones and securing those railings. It is a place that would have made my tummy quiver, had those railings not already been there!

But what great views, eh?

And now here is a view of the (yet another!) serpentine General’s Highway (see that little snakey line?) that we drove on through the park. I’m gonna need valium by the time I’m done … 

After a quick lunch, it was on to look at the massive General Sherman Tree. Wow. What I learned here is that General Sherman is neither the world’s tallest nor widest tree. Instead, it has the largest volume in its trunk, qualifying it for the world’s largest. How bout that? A little confusing, no?

But still, it’s both tall and wide – 275 feet tall and 36.5 feet in diameter at its base. They don’t know exactly how old the tree is, but estimate it to be between 1,800 and 3,000 years old! I find that so hard to conceptualize. What did this planet even look like 1,800 years ago?

After we massaged the kinks out of our neck from looking up so high, we drove down to the General Grant Forest and the General Grant Tree in the neighboring King’s Canyon National Park to put those kinks back in. Another massive tree, and this one IS the world’s widest.

General Grant is the world’s third largest tree (by volume again), and has the world’s biggest trunk, at 40 feet in diameter at ground level. In 1926, President Calvin Coolidge named it the Nation’s Christmas Tree. (Can you imagine trying to put the star on top of THAT one each year?)

As we had entered King’s Canyon National Park, we stopped to look at this beautiful view. The sign at this pull-out taught us that this view is part of the second largest roadless landscape in the Lower 48 states. (Darn it, the sign didn’t tell us what the first one was.) And the highest summit in the Lower 48 is also in these parks – Mt. Whitney, which rises to 14,495 feet. This is some beautifully powerful nature here!

We left these two parks having seen some stunning territory. We drove back through the nation’s fruit basket toward Fresno, then north to the foothills of Yosemite National Park. Driving in the dark, we finally found a campsite along Bass Lake and set up camp for the night.  

Finally East! Drive to Sequoia National Park

Friday, September 30

It was a really nice morning when we woke up in Big Sur State Park, so we took a hike. Though we were not in an official National/State Park-redwood forest, there still were some mighty big trees in that forest.

After we returned to the van, we packed up and got ready to roll. I prepped myself mentally for more wiggly, curvy road and turned south again, down the coast.

Wow – even more gorgeous coast! This is really pretty!

Our destination for the day’s drive was Sequoia National Park, which was east of us. (Can you believe it, we are FINALLY headed east, after two and a half months! J)

Looking at the map, though, it is clear that California roads are built for fast and easy travel north-south. Not so much for east-west.

I found my turn-off to travel east away from the coast and had to double check the map as I looked trepidatiously at the road I was going to take. Are you kidding me? I’m supposed to drive THIS van up THAT road?

And I thought the coastal road was wiggly!

We were headed up what felt like a sheer cliff. But not just a plain sheer cliff – this was a winding, curvy, serpentine cliff with no guardrails, headed to what felt like the blue sky above us. Oh. My. Word.

And at that point … I got a huge case of the giggles. What else was there to do? I could cry, but I just didn’t feel like that. It was too pretty a day for tears.

So I shifted the Champagne Chevy into second gear, readied the brakes and headed off up this cow path of a road. And it was along this windy, serpentine stretch that we took our last (amazingly gorgeous) view of the Pacific. Bye, bye – we have loved our time along this coast! 

About 15-20 miles into this road, we came upon the crazy secretive-looking Fort Hunter Liggett Military Reserve, where my cell phone signal was jammed – Hmmmm … what are they doing there?

We never found out, but instead kept driving. East … east … east.

We drove east and eventually hit what must be the nation’s fruit and nut basket – lots of vast, huge, flat agricultural land that is filled with orchards of all kinds. I guess that’s what you do with land that lies on a high plateau between two mountain ranges.

Odometer check – the van hit 26,000 on this trip.

After a long day of driving, we finally made it to Sequoia National Park, which is in the gorgeous Sierra Nevada mountain range. We drove to the first campsite inside the Park, found our spot and made some dinner.

Unfortunately, it was Friday night in the National Park and my fellow campground mates did not observe the quiet hours. As I opened up Harry Potter Book Seven and started to read, I tried to block out the loud, beer-drinking party happening a few campsites away.

Really – it’s midnight. Did you need to yell at the top of your lungs just now?

So much for sleeping like a log in the peace and serenity of nature … 

Monterey Bay

Thursday, September 29

After I left the Obbema’s house early afternoon, I headed southwest toward Monterey Bay. (Oh my gosh – I’m still headed west!) I had heard this was a beautiful spot in California, and indeed, it was.

Auggie and I arrived in Monterey Bay and parked the Champagne Chevy. As we were getting out, there was a woman on her cell phone directly behind us. She paused her call to compliment me on the van. She also asked how much it cost, which I thought was a little forward, but she followed up by saying she might be interested in buying something like that. I told her, with a raised eyebrow, that the van was going back to Washington, DC with me, but that didn’t seem to phase her. She gave me her name, called my cell phone so I had her number and told me that she would be interested in possibly buying it. Well, OK then. Potential buyer for when I’m done with my trip? We'll see ... 

Monterey Bay is a little town, so it didn’t take too long to meander the main street, Cannery Row. We took a nice look at the bay and then strolled down to John Steinbeck Park. Steinbeck was born and raised in Salinas, just a hop, skip and a jump away from Monterey Bay and within Monterey County. He has written several novels that describe Monterey County, including “Cannery Row,” “East of Eden,” “Tortilla Flat” and “Sweet Thursday.” (none of which I have read!)

N.B. - The one (and only!) John Steinbeck novel that I just recently read was “Travels with Charley: In Search of America,” which a friend of the family lent to me before this trip. "Travels with Charley" is about Steinbeck’s 1960 roadtrip with his standard poodle, Charley, around the United States. I LOVED it. It was a perfect book for me to read before hitting the road myself with my dog. I have the book with me in the van and have referred to it a number of times. It was appropriate that we landed in Steinbeck Park.

Since no dogs are allowed in the Monterey Bay aquarium (a good reason to come back), we skipped that and took a nice walk along the beach. The scenery looked pretty good!

And how bout these big ole fat seals, sunning themselves on this rock in the water?

We walked down to a point, where Auggie and I climbed the rocky landscape that looked over the Bay. Very pretty.

After that, we climbed back into the van and headed south along the coast till we found 17-Mile Drive. I didn’t learn this till afterwards, but 17-Mile Drive in Pebble Beach is noted as one of the world’s most scenic drives, and it’s included in the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Scenic Byways Program. It’s actually a (very tony!) residential area and also includes the well-known Pebble Beach golf course. It’s home to the Del Monte Forest of Fremont Cypress trees, as well as the famous “Lone Cypress Tree.”

Here’s a photo of the view from Cypress Point along the Drive.

And here’s a photo of the Lone Cypress Tree itself.

After taking all that in and trying to get my wind-blown hair out of my eyelashes, we jumped back into the van and headed south again along the Route 1 coastal drive. Good grief – wasn’t I done with this windy, curvy, craggy road yet???

The segment we drove that evening was less windy, curvy and craggy than it had been farther north above San Francisco, so we were not as nerve-wracked as we had been in the past. But still …

Eventually, we found our way to lovely Big Sur State Park, where we unpacked our camping mojo again and spent the night.

That evening, I finished Potter Book Six with tears streaming down my face. There is a very sad ending to this book!

Sniffing as I fell asleep, I slept like a log.