December 6-7, 2015 Dunlap and 2 National Parks, California

We started the day by visiting the California State Mining and Mineral Museum. It is right in the same lot we are camped in.

It was really interesting. There was a 13 lb gold nugget among lots of minerals I  could never remember the name of, but were really unique and pretty.  We saw this obelisk sort of in the middle of nowhere, in Tuttle, California. It is for George Hicks Franchen 1828-1900. No explanation.   On the internet I found out he was a rich rancher in the area and in his will left $25,000 to build a memorial to him. That was really a lot of money then. Apparently he was very thrifty during life. The news paper articles said  an obelisk built for a skin flint. A teacher in the area suggested they build a library instead, it would be very fitting memorial for him, but the heirs refused. He even left a trust fund to upkeep the site forever. No one wants the job of upkeep, no liability  insurance etc, so no one keeps up the site.

We left the wooded foothills and headed into Merced county that is pretty barren, into the central valley of California which is very fertile past orchard after orchard. Even vineyards for raisons. Above  are orange orchards and peach orchards with a back drop of snowy Sierras,  that have dropped their leaves and then green foothills with deciduous oak trees.  We stopped at this avocado stand along the way for avocados. This gentleman was a real character said he was half Indian and half Mexican. He met his wife when he was 18-she caught him stealing, he has never stolen anything since and has been married to her for 63 years. Plus he is wearing a 10 gallon hat that does not hold water.

 

Foothills with deciduous oak trees and big sandstones-same kind of country I played in as  a kid . The coach at the Sequoia/Kings Canyon RV park in Dunlap, Calif. at sunset.

We visited two National Parks today. First we went to Kings Canyon. The actual canyon is closed for winter,which is too bad, it is similar to Yosemite, a glacier carved deep canyon.  These are sequoia redwoods, which are the biggest trees in the world. They are shorter than the coastal redwoods, but much thicker. Unbelievably big. We visited the visitors center, and the Grant Grove which has the second biggest tree in the world, the Grant Tree. There was a huge fire here this summer, it burnt a number of the redwood groves. A lot of what we saw burnt patches, left some trees standing and many more just fried the needles, but other areas were total destruction.

 

John walking through a downed sequoia at the beginning of the Grant Grove trail. This second tree is fallen, but hollow inside and you walk through it as part of the trail. It was once lived in for a winter by a couple guys. The top one John is standing next to the post inside and the bottom one is me by the post. Really big tree.

Our second park is Sequoia National Park. The two parks are right next to each other.  These trees are cool in that they stay really fat the whole way up. Two photos of the General Sherman tree. One with John in front, he is about 20 feet away from it, too much traffic damages the roots, so it is much bigger than it looks here. The biggest tree in the world. It is 275 feet tall, the circumference is 103 feet and the diameter is 36.5 feet. There are taller trees and wider trees, but this one has the more volume than any other in world.  The photo does not do it justice, it is just too hard to really see how HIGE this is. 

 

John is laying on a branch that fell off the General Sherman Tree, taking a photo of his feet with the tree. . . In the second photo he is standing on the foot print of the General Sherman tree.

 

These trees are in the Giant Tree Forest. We are hiking on the 2 mile Congress trail here which winds through the giant trees here. John is in front of the President Tree.

We are both in the Senate group and John is in the House group. I think these groves look a lot better than the current house and senate in the government now days. These trees are at 7,000 feet in the Sierras.

John  over another tunnel on the trail and me in a burnt tree. There is a tunnel in a fallen tree that you can drive through, but it is closed for the winter.

This giant tree is in front of the Giant Forest Museum which is about the sequoias. Sunset on the way home.

       A sequoia cone in the upper left, a sugar pine cone in the upper left. The sugar pine cones can be up to 18 inches long.  A couple snow men people built along the trail by people who I am sure don’t live where it snows.