May 20, 2012 Headed to Glacier via Sequoia / Kings Canyon National Forrest and through the Eclipse

An amature camera appears to be the wrong way to take a picture of an Eclipse

On the road again! Headed North from LA to Glacier

The vegetation along Hwy 99 is nice. Highway 99 does not try to shatter our teeth like I-5. The road for us is just as fast since California limits us to 55. No traffic lights from Bakersfield to just south of Marysville.

Entering Bakersfield – Athena’s mom lived here when Athena was little. Her mom hated it here, as people kept stealing her clothes. All we know about this town, is not to live here if you want to keep your clothes on.

We stop for a couple nights at the Visalia KOA. It is not far from Hwy 198 going into Sequoia National Park. The KOA was clean, and $65 a night for two adults two kids, and included California taxes. So the price was probably fair. If your only reason to be in the area though is to see Sequoia and Kings Canyon. Don’t go here unless all the national parks are full. Instead go to hwy 180 out of Fresno, there are a lot of inexpensive parks just inside Kings Canyon. They are cheap and quiet, The KOA was neither. For more information go to “Places to See” in the menu above, click on California, scroll down to “Visalia”

Athena and Sarah get ready play ping pong. The game room is nice has pool, excersise bikes, arcade gaes which they unplug to keep the room quiet. The builing it self looks good, but it is just a modular that is rotting from the bottom up, and crumbling from earth quake damage from the roof down.

They put all of us with big rv in the back of the park near the cabins. The shower and bathrooms are really wierd. The person in the stall next to you has only a 50% chance of being the same gender as you. Sharing with someone of opposite gender as you and is not your spouse, is a little odd!

Parked in our slot – did not like the low branches as they rub the paint on the rv, but the shade is nice and the power was good enought to run both AC units. At 90 outside, that is a blessing.

Beware of Rv’s without License plates, this guy tried to squish us like a bug. Reverse at 60 is bad! He is German, Germans’s are usually smarter than that. He made a wrong turn though; so he had an excuse.

Headed to Sequoia National Park via 198

Kind of cool, “Tunnel Rock”, had no parking available due to crowds, so we did not stop.

I caught a bear cub breaking into my lunch!

Looks like LA’s smoke is leaking into the forest. Snow streams are cool looking.

No wonder they said no RV’s and Vehcle combinations over 22′ could come up here. It is Narrow and windy. Not driving this section would be no loss though, as other than Tunnel Rock and for the joy of the climb, one would miss nothing if he came up via 180 from Fresno. We had fun jeeping it though. Our CRV is gutless, but will go most anywhere.

I really should clean the windsheild, no idea how Athena can see to drive.

We arrive at the Sequoia museum, not much in there, but one particular apealing exhibit was a pie shaped piece of wood. The wood was a foot thick, heavily lacquered, tall as me, and just as pretty. There was a prim bearded prius driving man, who probably packs his pee out of the woods wearing a forest service uniform standing behind me. Looking at the beautiful peice of wood, I told Holly how nice of a table that would make, but since it is little large for our house, a peice of pie that size would be really nice. It was getting toward lunch and I was hungry. Hearing some of this conversation, it must have struck him as being his duty to tell us we could not have the wood in the national forest. They now leave all wood on the ground, and never cleanup dead stuff. I replied what a waste, all that could be used for something rather than forest fire tinder. He said it was used to make new trees from. He then looked and sounded a little put out, and told me the forest service would put me in jail if I so much as disturbed a stick. I told him I would think about it. Holly decided it was time to go to the car before I impressed him any further. He must have went to school in a city, or a liberal state like California or New York. The educated city boys have no real understanding of the eco system. No, idea what got his tail feathers up, but Holly paid me a great compliment and told me I had a way with park rangers.

My family looking at a just average Sequoia tree at the Sequoia museum. I know the tree is just average, as the sign says so. They told us the trees make a lot of seeds, but few ever become large trees. They copied the Parabel of the Sower in Mathew 13:3 the tree was the sower, and its seeds fell on rocky soil, or on some soil, but only a few fell in good soil, with good light, and adequate water and grew healthy and strong.

Shoot! My chocolate melted! How do I eat it? I know, this work! Yup, it’s good this way too. We polished off another great lunch 🙂

These people drug me down a really long trail (About 1/4 mile), but 1 hours walk each way. It took an hour because I am slightly heavy and hard to drag. We went to see the General Sherman tree. This is not it, but my family is mostly photgenic at this moment.

My family does not appreciate me as much as I think they should, and tried to feed me to this tree. Thankfully we are not in the land of the “Ents” or I would have been lunch. Probably licked up like that chocolate.

I guess it is risky to climb General Sherman fence! The guy in the sign is missing his head.

The kids are stairing the wrong way for some reason. The General Sherman tree is behind them. Sarah decided to see how risky it was to climb the fence. So I shot her.

General Sherman tree is a big tree.

This tree just has a big trunk

A fallen tree by the General Grant tree makes a nice tunnel or place to camp. No, really a militery group camped here, and once along its life, it was put to use as a tavern.

Big room in the tree

Steep stair climb out of here. My wife is wearing me out, but it is fun.

Couple neat trees in the General Grant parking lot. Lots of good camping here.

Done walking around in the forest. We go to Olive Garden. Food was great, service was great, but the place was so loud it was like being in grade school cafeteria. Could not hear one another across the table. The interior design was an acoustic nightmare!

On the road again, we get behind a cattle drive! The good thing these are a little faster than the ones I remember. Never curse technology!

Sacramento has big Golden buildings. I wonder if that is what the people who advertise “We buy gold” are doing with all the gold they buy.

We setup camp in Oregon House, and are looking to photgraph the eclipse

An amature camera appears to be the wrong way to take a picture of an Eclipse

Sarah tapes a paper with a slight fold in it on to the window facing the sun.

They folded a paper into tent shape and place it on the floor. The sun peared through the paper that had the hole, the tented paper acted as a screen for us to view the sun. On the paper is a ring, the dark spot in the center is the moon. Pretty cool, they could build an eclipse viewer with just a peice of paper, and then I could shoot the eclipse. Good job family!

The shadows are weird too, as the sun and the moon together are making distorted images. If you look carefully, you will see that the eclipse is reavealing new baby fingers growing between Holly’s fingers.