We woke up with an intended quest today. We had an outing planned! J' & I woke up and did our usual; put on clean clothes, put up the bed, fed 'the bug', and ate some oatmeal, just regular oats with cinnamon and a little brown sugar added to our liking. Then gathered by the fire pit to meet up with the other campers. Bob was going to show us around the Sierra National Park...well a bit of it at least. Around 10:30 a.m. we all gathered in one of the gals vans, Tex, she calls it her baby RV (she also has a mama 40 footer back home). There were 6 of us all together; J' & I, Hank (Bob), Tex, 'Edward' & Hightower, and Savannah & Homer of course.
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Tex, High Tower, J' & I groovin' & movin'[/caption]The first place we stopped was McKinley Grove, a beautiful place full of Sequoias and other big trees. Let me tell you, if you think you've seen a big tree, you haven't seen nothing until you see one of these Sequoias. These trees, in this area, date back at least 2,000 years and can be 19.5 feet in diameter!
They are simply amazing to be next to and to look up at. The top of the tree is just as wide as the base~ totally rad, man.
And the pine cones are so small that come from this incredible organism...it's very impressive. I also learned from reading (good thing I learned how to do that) that it takes 2 million seeds to grow one tree and there are only 200 seeds per pine cone...you do the math('cause I'm not haha)! We spent some time walking around and gawking at the trees. I think it's funny to walk around and look at everyone, everyone's head is pointed up, haha. This puts a whole new meaning on tree hugger for me.
After experiencing the Sequoias we drove another good 12-15 miles up to Wishon Dam, it's one, of not many, Earthen Dams. It's a spectacular view no matter which side you stand on. On one side you have mountains upon mountains of varying sizes, trees & rock.
On the other side there are mountains and the bluest water you'll ever see, with a small one lane road running through the middle of it all...breathtaking.
We sat here for a little bit and took some pictures, while we were taking in the sights there was a family blowing up a raft to the side of where we were standing. We caught ourselves very intrigued with the family. There were three teenage boys with this big red & orange raft, they blew it up with air and started truckin' it down the hill to the water. A woman followed behind them and she was yelling, "You better have sunscreen on, if you don't have sunscreen on you're not going in!". She then was yelling to her husband for them to not get in the water until they had sunscreen on. The husband then says, "Ya'll have sunscreen on, if ya don't, ya cain't go in." We (yes we are all still watching, haha) then see the boys all throw the raft down and run over to their dad and start loading up on sunscreen. We really just wanted to see the reaction of them getting into the water because it had to be ice cold, but they took forever putting on sunscreen so we left.
We drove back down the mountain to go have a picnic, but before lunch we stopped at Wishon Village. Wishon Village is a campground but also a small grocery store. They sell food, drinks, beer, knick knacks, clothing and of course ice cream! We have learned that you get your ice cream when you can around here, so we 'spoiled' our lunch with some yummy cold ice cream. I had a Nestle's cookie sandwich and J' had a chocolaty drumstick.
Since they don't have cell signal here, they do have pay phones outside of the store and you can buy calling cards to make your phone call. *BEWARE: Everything up here costs triple what it would in the city. Our two ice creams were about $8-9.00. The gas up here is $4.39 for regular unleaded. So beware if you need or want something, I would REALLY make sure you need or want it.* Also down in the campground they have a laundry facility. We drove into our picnic area and set up for lunch, we all brought our own food. We sat and talked, while eating our lunch, about everything from campsites to tattoos.
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It's a long way down, Nana[/caption]
On our way back we stopped at the Ranger station to throw away garbage and fill up on fresh water, this was a major find...thanks Bob!
The rest of the day was spent lazily hanging around reading and chillin' by the camp fire. A couple more people are leaving in the morning so it was nice to have one more night to hang out and chit chat.
Safe travels my (new) friends. We will see you when our roads meet again.
PEACE
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