The California Side Trip: Day 1 & 2

 Friday, October 27

We left the campsite and found a dump station in the Mead National Recreation Area.  Our Veteran Park pass got us in for free and of course, once in you can use the dump facilities.

It's a nice area, we liked their dispersed camping area and might return to camp there upon returning from California.

We then drove over over to nearby Bullhead City and an RV Storage Yard for which we had a pretty good deal.  Took a bit of time but we got everything rearranged and repacked.  

We would be taking only the Honda CR-V.  No sense taking the VRRV as gas prices in California are so high and the CR-V gets 3.5 times better MPG than the RV!

Our first stop is Bakersfield, CA.  We got a room at the Hampton Inn, we covered 300 miles today from Bullhead City.

Saturday, October 28

Up bright and early, we left Bakersfield after a hotel breakfast.  It was a bit of a slog to get to the Sequoia National Park but in the end I believe it was worth the miles and miles of twisty roads and hairpin turns.

The majesty of the giant Redwoods, I couldn't capture with the camera in any kind of close approximation of reality.

Here's my attempts at it:

Martha the Tree Hugger

Tunnel Log

video by Martha of the CR-V going

through Tunnel Log

Next was a stop at the Auto Log.  Wide enough to park a vehicle on top of it.

Auto Log

Martha on the Auto Log's roots

The General Sherman Tree

The Tough Twins

Catching a Breather after climbing up from

base of General Sherman Tree

A little bit of Fall Color

A tree you can walk through lengthwise...above is 

the top...

and here's the root entrance

Soon, it finally dawned on me that perhaps video was a better way to capture the largeness of the trees:

Here's Martha's contributions to today's photographic efforts:

At the roots of the Auto Log

Roots of the Auto Log

After the Sequoia shenanigans, we made our way back down from 7000 feet and spent the afternoon after a hearty lunch driving to the east side of the Bay Area.

Only one close call while in heavy traffic, managed to avoid a collision.  California traffic is such fun.

We'll be in the Fremont area for the next few days, visiting my folks and doing some limited sight-seeing perhaps.