Vegas

And now for something completely different…

Vegas Baby, where it was only 105F instead of 120F.

We stayed at the Mandalay Bay Resort Friday and Saturday nights, and had a pretty good day on Saturday. We woke up with an all you can eat breakfast buffet, spent several hours lounging by the pools, playing tag and swimming recklessly in the lazy river, and showing the landlubbers how to body surf in the wave pool. We slept in a clean king size bed, took as many showers as we wanted, and surfed the web and read.

That evening we saw Spamalot at the Wynn, and had a fantastic dinner at one of the restaurants there named for the chef - Daniel Boulard. We saw what we think was a famous rapper with his posse (judging by the outrageous shirt, diamond jewelry, and body guard) but we aren’t hip enough to know what the kids are listening to these days on their MTZ.

Sunday morning we woke up, wrote a couple of blog entries, and got the hell out of dodge. Vegas was fun, but one day was plenty. For anyone curious about gambling, we never partook – we lost our money the old fashioned way. We spent it. They sure are good at sucking you dry in that town.

Right now we are watching our laundry dry outside Zion National Park, and will go check things out tomorrow. That’s all for now.

Death Valley

Becca and I left Yosemite after filling up with over $4/gallon gas (I got proof) and headed out over Tioga Pass, down the east side of the Sierras, through Owens Valley, and into Death Valley. We made a few stops, but mostly we drove and looked things over from the car. It was a little warm outside afterall.

We did stop at Badwater, the lowest point in the US to take a picture. Then we got back in the car with the A/C and headed to Vegas.

Yosemite

Next, we were on to Yosemite. We arrived in the park on Monday afternoon (Memorial Day) and the place was an absolute zoo. I (Becca) went into total shock after the peace and quite in Kings Canyon. On our first day we did a quick touristy loop of the valley, stopping at Bridal Veil Falls, the visitor center, etc… We soon decided that there were too many people in the Valley, so we headed to our campground in Wawona, which was still in the park, but about a 40 min. drive south of the Valley. The campground was fabulous – nice and peaceful, and our campsite was right on the banks of a rushing river. It seemed like most people that chose to stay here were avid fishermen and came to spend a few days trout fishing in the river.

The next day we ventured back into the valley (which was much less crowded since the holiday weekend was over) and we spent the majority of the day hiking up to the top of Yosemite Falls, and then on to Yosemite Point. The hike was very, very steep (over 3000 ft elevation gain), but pretty short (only 3.7 miles to the top of the falls and another mile to Yosemite Point). I thought we did pretty well, considering this was our most challenging hike yet. The view from the top of Yosemite point was spectacular. I am a bit scared of heights, so it was a bit unnerving being so close to the edge of shear cliffs, but I stuck it out for the amazing views:

We ended the day by having a good dinner at the Wawona hotel, and went to bed very, very tired.

The next day we hiked Vernal and Nevada Falls. This was also a great hike, as you can see by the pictures. And we made a hiking friend for the day (Hi Paul!). After the hike we rented bikes and toured the valley – way better than a car tour! By the end of the day Kimbal and I were totally beat and ready for some relaxing.

Our last day in Yosemite we took a lazy raft ride down the Merced River. I paddled and Kimbal enjoyed the views. Since Kimbal does most of the driving, it was his turn to relax and look around; besides, sometimes I like being the skipper! After the raft ride we headed up towards Glacier Point, where we hiked to the Fissures and Taft Point, and then enjoyed the scenery, dinner, and a nice sunset at Glacier Point.

The next morning (Friday), we rose early and headed out of Yosemite over Tioga Pass, which was also beautiful. We didn’t stop much though, because the mosquitoes were out in full force in this part of the park.

Next stop: Death Valley and then Las Vegas for some pampering!

Kings Canyon & Sequoia

Upon leaving the bay area (Wednesday, May 23^rd), Kimbal and I drove straight to King’s Canyon/ Sequoia National Park and set up camp. We wanted to make sure that we got there pretty early in the week, since the coming weekend was Memorial Day weekend, and we were pretty sure the campgrounds would fill up. Well, getting there on Wednesday was plenty early and we got an excellent campsite in a grove of large cedar trees overlooking a small meadow in the Kings Canyon Sentinel campground. All of the campgrounds did end up filling up, but not until late Friday night. We spent Thursday through Sunday enjoying all that the two parks had to offer. In Kings Canyon we were wowed by the raggedness of the valley – to us, the valley looked like something out of the lord of the rings: primeval and not really of this world. We did two great day hikes in the canyon, one to mist falls, and the other to a place called “Cedar lookout point”. On the mist falls trail we saw a bunch of King snakes (they eat rattle snakes). We didn’t see any rattle snakes, but we passed some people on the trail who had a rattle snake shake his rattle at them! The falls were beautiful, as were the views of the canyon, here are some pictures:

At Sequoia, we saw a greater variety of wildlife: trout in the streams, pikas, yellow bellied marmots, deer, and a bear! We saw the bear soon after we arrived in the park, and thought it was a taste of more to come, but alas it was our only bear sighting on the trip thus far. We did several short hikes to get a flavor of the variety of landscapes in the park (saw the Sherman Tree, walked out on Moro Rock, hiked the Tharps Log trail past some beautiful meadows) and we did a long day hike up to some alpine lakes (Heather and Aster lakes). We also took a tour of Crystal Caves. The alpine lakes hike was absolutely breathtaking (both beautiful and strenuous) and it was a nice taste of the high Sierra Nevada. The Tharps log trail was also really peaceful, and we could tell a lot of bears like to visit the alpine meadows on a regular basis given the large amounts of scat that we saw. The big trees were cool too, although Kimbal and I have decided that we are partial to the giant Redwoods. Here are some of our pics from Sequoia:

Bay Area

Becca and I spent a week and a half visiting family and friends in the bay area, and we had a great time. We caught a ride with my Dad on one of his sailing races on Saturday, and we went for a hike up Mt. Tamalpias and caught some great views of the bay area. We went out on the bay and saw some fireworks on my Dad’s birthday, and spent Mother’s Day with my Mom on the Napa Valley Wine Train. We played with our niece Cally on the slide, and we went to a nice French restaurant for Becca’s 27^th birthday. A good time was had by all.

The next stop will be Kings Canyon / Sequoia National Parks for a few days, then up to Yosemite for a few more, and then down to Las Vegas where we hope to win enough money to finance the rest of our trip. Wish us luck.

Redwoods

We’ve gotten behind on our blog entries, so this is from a few weeks ago: Becca and I spent 3 days in and around the various Redwood state parks, slowly working our way south. The first full day we drove down Howland Hill Rd, which is a slow, windy dirt road where you can drive slowly enough through the park to appreciate the size of the trees. They are BIG. About half way down the 7 mile road, there is a hike that heads north off the trail to fern falls and the boy scout tree. We headed off down the trail on a nice leisurely stroll just taking everything in. There is a distinctly different feeling in old growth redwood forests than anything I’ve ever experienced before – everything is a little hushed, and the size and spacing between the trees is humbling. I could spend days just sitting there and soaking it all in.


That night, we headed down the road a bit to our next campsite at Elk Prairie where we discovered there really is something to the name of the place.

On Wednesday, Becca and I went for another walk through the trees.

And then we headed out to the coast to a place called Fern Canyon, which you might recognize from Jurassic Park. The canyon was in “rough shape” according to one sign because of several downed and dead trees that got swept into the canyon during the winter storms. We made our way about a mile up the canyon balancing on logs that had been laid across the stream in a mostly futile effort to keep our feet dry. Very cool.

Again, we headed south to that nights campsite at Patrick’s Point State Park, where we made some dinner, and brought our hot chocolate out to the bluff to watch the sun set over the ocean.

Thursday we drove down to the bay area to see my parents, sticking to the coast the whole way. By this time we had spent the past couple of weeks on the coast, and around every turn there would be another beautiful seascape, and then another, and then another. Yawn. It became so routine we didn’t even take any pictures. We also drove down the “Avenue of the Giants” which used to be the highway through the area. It was nice, but the hikes we had been on the past few days were much more impressive. Must be time to head back to civilization for a while.

Oregon Caves

On Sunday Kimbal and I had a nice breakfast with the other guests at the B&B. I enjoyed the intellectual and liberal conversation we had: all about alternative fuels and flying. Oh yeah, and here's a not so great picture of our awesome room at the B&B:


After breakfast we headed down 199 to the Oregon Caves National Monument. We did the caves tour, which was interesting, but not super exciting. In some places the cave was really small (Kimbal was nearly crawling), but other “rooms” were huge, with cathedral ceilings and beautiful rock formations. Back on the surface I watched a deer family move through the woods, a momma with her two twins. They appeared to move very deliberately, each step appeared cautious, but with definite purpose. I guess you have to use caution when you are potential prey to cougars, yikes! I try to use caution too, who's to say the cougar wouldn't want me for dinner, but I certainly don't let it stop me from enjoying the beautiful forests!


After leaving the monument, we headed south to California. An hour or so down the road, we rounded a bend and we were suddenly in redwood country! Pre-historic mammoth trees right on the side of the highway! We settled in for the night at the Mill Creek campground among some fallen redwood trees (it’s a second growth area). It was by far the best camp site that we have stayed in thus far. I'll let Kimbal tell you all about the redwoods in our next blog entry.