Sequoia NP

Original plans for the trip back were to drive straight to Las Vegas for the first night, a 4 hour trip that would have allowed us to wake up and hit the casinos early.  But upon request from Justine, who had nye to see the giant sequoias I’d seen in Yosemite, we decided to drive up to the park to get a look at the biggest trees in the world.  We weren’t disappointed.  Upon arrival, we camped at a little RV park just outside the National Park itself, and had a great first night.  An early start the next day, we drove up into the park, which at first glance looks pretty barren.  Theres some low growing brush and stuff, but nothing that looks as though it would support the largest trees in the world.  For that, you have to drive 24 miles on winding California roads up into the hidden mountain valleys that are much higher in elevation.  Our trip to the forest was lengthened by construction, making the 24 mile trip take almost 2 hours.  Well worth it though.  Immediately after entering the pine forests, giant sequoias began to appear.  10, 15, 20 ft diameter giants.  We drove up to the Sherman Tree trailhead and walked a short hike through the Giant Forest, which houses the largest Sequoias around.  The first one we came to was the big one, called General Sherman.  It was 275 feet tall, 32 feet around the base, and weighed a lot.  In terms of overall mass, it’s the largest tree in the world, and only the General Grant tree located in an adjacent Sequoia Grove, is wider, at 40 ft.  A branch of this giant had recently fallen, smashing through the pavement below it.  It was a 6 foot diameter branch!  That wider than most trees. 

It’s hard to have your picture taken with these trees, as you have to stand so far away to capture the whole base of the tree.  Many of the larger Sequoias are named after presidents or government bodies:  the President, the Senate, the House, General Grant, General Sherman.  What an amazing place.  Because the continually burn the understory of the forest -to make room for new sequoia saplings- the forest floor is completely open and you can see for a hundred yards in any direction in these woods, seeing the towering trees interspersed throughout.

General Sherman himself, the largest tree in the world!

The bottom of General Sherman's trunk from afar, for some perspective.

The base of a Giant Sequoia.  They ran even bigger than this.

Can you find Justine hiding in the Senate?

By the end of our walk, the smaller sequoias, still giants in their own right, seemed small compared to some of the others.  We hopped back in the car and made the slow drive back down out of the mountains to the valley where we were camped.  Both famished, we refueled at a local pizzeria before making the very long drive to Las Vegas.  We switched on and off driving, passing out of the California valley, accented by endless fields of fruit and nut orchards.  This has got to be where most of the country’s fruits come from.  It’s actually quite a desolate area.  Besides all the orchards, there ain’t much around.  All the water brought in for the fruits is through irrigation.  We left this area and continued eastward, driving through the Mojave desert into the dark, passing through flash thunderstorms, and getting stuck for an hour in traffic 20 miles outside Vegas.  Being a Friday night, cars were streaming in by the hundreds to blow their money on a weekend in the city.  After 8 hours, we made it, and were both blown away by the light show that is Las Vegas.  Every sign is decorated with glaring neon lights.  For those of you that have been there, you know what I mean.  Vegas is basically an over-the-top city, like a Disney Land or Disney World, but for adults.  We drove the strip, but our initial plans to gamble that first night were scratched by our late arrival.  We found a campsite in Lake Meade National Recreational Area and decided to do Las Vegas in the morning.