{"id":897,"date":"2012-06-05T01:01:26","date_gmt":"2012-06-05T06:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/?p=897"},"modified":"2012-06-05T01:01:26","modified_gmt":"2012-06-05T06:01:26","slug":"vacation-day-12-od-on-big-trees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/?p=897","title":{"rendered":"Vacation Day 12: OD on Big Trees"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rich woke up again today.\u00a0 Just can’t say that enough.<\/p>\n

Noises start early at the John Muir Lodge.\u00a0 I got the guys up and moving at 8:00 to start the day.<\/p>\n

We went down for breakfast at the restaurant.\u00a0 Nothing big to speak of.\u00a0 Just regular breakfast stuff.<\/p>\n

We checked in at the Visitor’s Center and got some info on the shuttle buses.\u00a0 Then we headed into Sequoia National Park proper to find the General Sherman tree.\u00a0 Now this general is the world’s largest tree by volume.\u00a0 The tallest trees are in the Redwood Forest in northern California.\u00a0 But this general, he is big.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We got to the lot and parked.\u00a0 At the top of the trail, there was a nice entrance.\u00a0 The trail leads down about a mile to the tree.\u00a0 Along the way, there are signs and exhibits.\u00a0 We saw the sign that said we were half down the tree.\u00a0\u00a0 We looked around before we noticed a very big tree straight ahead of us and behind some smaller trees.\u00a0 Now that was big.<\/p>\n

Walking up to the General, we noticed a tree lying beside it on the path.\u00a0 Turned out, this was just a limb from the General that fell and they left it as part of the exhibit.\u00a0 You could touch it and it was huge.\u00a0 Amazing that this was just a limb and not a tree.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We decided to take the Congress Trail through the groves of big trees.\u00a0 This trail was a 2 mile walk up and down the hills to see the other big trees that were in this part of the park.\u00a0 It was called Congress for the other tree names in these groves.\u00a0 We saw the President, the Senate, the House, McKinley, Lee, and lots of other sequoias.\u00a0 Many of them had evidence of fire and damage.\u00a0 But no matter how damaged the trees might be, they only needed some part of their limbs to reach the roots to survive.\u00a0 They seem to do this very well.<\/p>\n

At the bottom of the trail, we caught a bus headed to the Giant Forest Museum.\u00a0 The bus took us by the Lodgepole Lodge and a couple of other areas.\u00a0 We finally made it to the museum, which was small without too much to see.\u00a0 From here, we hopped a very full bus going to Moro Rock.<\/p>\n

Now Moro Rock is named for the roan horses that pastured there with the Spanish.\u00a0 There are 400 steep and narrow steps that take you to the top of a rock formation.\u00a0 From here, you can look out to both sides of the valley.\u00a0 I made up only halfway before I decided to wait in a small area with stone seats.\u00a0 I had been to the top over 20 years ago, so I knew what I was missing.\u00a0 I wanted them to see it.<\/p>\n

Rick and Rich continued up to the top.\u00a0 They were gone for a very long time and I was wondering if they fell off.\u00a0 Rick appeared beside me before I knew it.\u00a0 Somehow, I missed his descent down the mountain.\u00a0 Rich finally caught up with us.\u00a0 Rick, of course, is zipping up and down the mountain with no problem.\u00a0 Rich and I had to take our time coming down the steep steps.<\/p>\n

We got back on the shuttle bus to get back to the museum again.\u00a0 However, we had to ride it around to Crescent Meadow, the Tunnel Log that you drive through, and then back to the museum.\u00a0 From there, we got a shuttle back to our vehicle.\u00a0 It had been a long day.\u00a0 But since it was only 3:30, we decided to come back to the lodge for dinner and then head down to King’s Canyon National Park.<\/p>\n

I had been down to King’s Canyon when I was here over 20 years ago.\u00a0 Since we had time, it was worth the trip.\u00a0 Now this is another downward trip to drive into the canyon.\u00a0 It was steep, but few cars were out on the road.\u00a0 Much better drive on when it is you alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Halfway down, I hit a snake lying in the road to sun itself.\u00a0 It was black and white and not something I recognized.\u00a0 The next snake was a rattler that I missed, according to Rich since I didn’t see him.\u00a0 The next snake was already dead, but just a plain garden variety snake.\u00a0 I got a picture of my black and white one on the way back up.<\/p>\n

We got to Yucca Point and wondered why it had this name.\u00a0 Then you look out and realize that the mountain and the sides of the roads were covered with blooming yuccas!\u00a0 We stopped to take pictures because it looked like something out of Dr. Seuss.\u00a0 They were beautiful though.<\/p>\n

We finally got down to the King’s River and the road ran beside it.\u00a0 We took pictures of the rapids and some features in the river.\u00a0 It is a very fast flowing river.\u00a0 We made it to Grizzly Falls about 6:30.\u00a0 After taking pictures of the falls, we decided to head back up to the lodge.\u00a0 It seemed to take forward to get down to the bottom, but only took an hour to get back to the top.\u00a0 We stopped at Junction View to take pictures of the valley as the forks of the river met.\u00a0 The hazy wasn’t too bad today.<\/p>\n

At the top of the road, we decided to go back to Chicago stump.\u00a0 The road was rocky and dirt.\u00a0 After a mile, the sign said we had another mile to go.\u00a0 Nope, I gave up.\u00a0 I didn’t want to be stuck on this road when it got dark out.\u00a0 So we headed back out of the wilderness without seeing one bear.<\/p>\n

Back at the lodge, I called Claudine, Rich’s cousin, to arrange our meeting in Santa Monica the next night.\u00a0 We are having dinner and getting reacquainted.\u00a0 Should be fun.\u00a0 We are hoping to see the LaBrea Tar Pits, Santa Monica pier, Venice Beach, and Rick’s favorite gaming producers, Naughty Dog.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As I’m typing, the guys are discussing how to attract a bear to the lodge.\u00a0 Someone is hooting and hollering out there tonight.\u00a0 They wondered if the bear got someone already.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Well, good night.\u00a0 Tomorrow, we drive to LA and spend the night is Santa Monica. Vacation is almost over.<\/p>\n

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That's me in front of the General Sherman tree. This tree is the largest tree in the world by volume. It is a mere 1,800 years old.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Then the trees come in groves also. This is the Senate grove on the Congress Trail.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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We felt like this the whole time. They are all so tall and so big around. Truly, this was the forest of giants in Sequoia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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I started to climb the 400 steps on Moro Rock and only got to 200. This is me at the mid point waiting for the guys to return.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Rich decided to climb all the way to the top of Moro Rock. I got this shot of him continuing the climb to the heavens.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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We had hoped to see bears, but these statues turned out to be the only bears we saw. I did a Rose pose with them.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The yuccas were all in bloom in King's Canyon as we drove down to the river. It looked like something out of Dr. Seuss, they looked like cartoon characters.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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We drove into King's Canyon back to Grizzly Falls and took some pictures of the river and the falls. Then it was getting late and we drove back up to the canyon rim.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rich woke up again today.\u00a0 Just can’t say that enough. Noises start early at the John Muir Lodge.\u00a0 I got the guys up and moving at 8:00 to start the day. We went down for breakfast at the restaurant.\u00a0 Nothing big to speak of.\u00a0 Just regular breakfast stuff. We checked in at the Visitor’s Center […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}