#159 Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park ,RV park in Dunlap Ca 3 nights

I decided to do Kings Canyon and Sequoia in a more relaxed way the second time around. The first time we stopped in Visalia California and visited with our wonderful little friend Mrs. Lovett the founder of Coarsegold escapees and stayed in her driveway. To be more correct we stayed on the actual street but it was wonderful to visit with her. For reasons of stubbornness, I thought it made more sense to enter the entire facility which is like a hundred miles long from the south go up the hill through Sequoia and then exit out of Kings Canyon just because it seemed like the thing to do. On our first visit, Mrs. Lovett said she would strongly suggest entering from the north at Kings Canyon and go down south word towards Sequoia. She said it several times and emphasize we would be crazy to do otherwise. We took her advice. Even if a person decided to enter from the south at Sequoia they should do it without the rig. I say again we took her advice and came in from the north. When we visited it the first time was a little bit of a being in a hurry kind of thing. We went up to Kings Canyon and enter and it was an extremely foggy day so you really couldn't see much ahead as you were driving. We left the rig at her house and work in the truck alone. It was plenty twisting and turning and we went to see one of the big trees it was General Grant. We had just spent maybe an hour or two at the most and we needed to do better for this trip. We found an RV park private about halfway up the hill to Kings Canyon National Park. It was just past an area called Squaw Valley. We would later find that this is approximately where you would get any of your groceries or restaurants. It wasn't much but this is where it was going to happen and also a church service. Needless to say, nobody has told them that the name of their town is derogatory to native women but I sure they know and don’t care

We settled into an RV site and it was mostly long-term people there but we needed a place and it was fine. There wasn't a whole lot of available in the park that was anything more than dry camping and hard to. If there is anything they would pretty booked this time of year. If not this place we would be driving an hour every day just to get to the National Park.

We spent about a week there and we went into the park many times. We did lots of hikes got some great sunsets shots. There were so many things to visit in addition to the Sequoia tree Groves.

One day we went on an excursion that led to a kind of a cool place to go kayaking and on a nice lake. We were just wandering around and happened upon it.

On one end of it, there was like a Baptist Type Summer Youth Camp and there were like 500 teenagers so it was kind of good for Savannah to see people of her species. We kind of had to go a little on the other side because it was their side of the lake and we weren't probably a hundred percent welcome. They had paid full price and we were just squatters. We went to the other side and found a nice little put-in spot and went kayaking All three of us went and just had a really nice time as a family. This took about all day and with a little bit of driving and touring that was about it.

I just wanted to point out to remind myself of why we went in the order we did. It would have made a whole lot more sense as the crow flies to go to Sequoia first then go to Yosemite second. Now I remember why we did it the way we did.

When coming from the south you would pass by Sequoia on the way to Yosemite but I intentionally skipped it and went to Yosemite quickly. When we left Florida across Texas and so forth, I had a couple of things I really wanted to make sure that we saw seasonally. I wanted to be in the Hill Country of Texas to see the flowers blooming and that needed to be kind of like March-ish. I was a little late for that but it was still gorgeous. Next, I really wanted to be at Yosemite for the spring thaw of the snowmelt so t I would see amazing waterfalls. In a practical way, I went to Yosemite first because I wanted to make sure we were not too late to see the waterfalls. The first time we went to Yosemite it was in the fall and it was bone dry and the waterfalls are all gone and I got to tell you as soon as always pretty but it was kind of a disappointment. This time I just had to make sure there were amazing waterfalls to be had. I was afraid if I delayed and lollygag, I might let the spring-fall get past me and that's why I went quickly to Yosemite as a priority. I was thrilled to hear all the Rangers say that this may very well have been some of the biggest waterfall volume they've seen in many years. I was thrilled.

I had this fantasy of kayaking down the Merced River and it was a raging torrent capable of killing people kind of volume of water. It was raging so hard they had closed the river to the public for kayaking and all. This method means to go north then south then north again but it ensured I saw the most water flow at Yosemite.

We parked at a central parking area and got on a shuttle because it was much simpler than driving the whole way. You can get on a bus to just about anywhere from Kings Canyon and go to Sequoia or wherever you wanted and that's what we did.

I began to understand why you don't ride straight through from Kings Canyon to Sequoia. It's a pretty good climb just getting to the top of Kings Canyon and that's without a rig. When you get there, I can only imagine it's probably 60 miles or so of switchbacks. The kind that would make your heart stop and sink to your stomach. I mean it's a little scary. So who knows which I would be happier going straight down the hill white-knuckling it or going straight up the hill. I don't know but yes, we went the long way around it using the interstate and came up the bottom side like she had told us a year before.

At Sequoia anyway we spent a nice day trip going to see General Sherman. It’s the largest tree-living by volume. There was quite a crowd of people. To get to the tree one had to park maybe a fourth of a mile away or more and then walked up to the tree viewing area.

It was all very exciting and I was just amazed at how huge the old guy was. I feel like everybody that was there was sort of just in awe of how huge this tree is.

One area that kind of messed me up is called Big Stump. It is a good reminder of how we don't take care of things very well. The biggest of the big stumps was about the biggest tree that was ever known to exist. Back in the 1900s, they bragged about how cool it was to cut it down and took about a week to do so. Cutting down this enormous giant was what led people at Teddy Roosevelt to eventually save the Redwoods. The. Sequoias.

From an Onceler’s perspective, it's just great to have such a big trophy is look at what I did look at what I killed. From my perspective, it's enough to make you just want to cry. Why do we have to destroy the most beautiful thing that's ever lived? It was probably 5000 years old.