Yosemite

Yesterday, we visited Yosemite National Park and had delightful weather for the day. We visited many wonderful sights and I took over 200 photos. What a job I had to choose the ones I wanted to put on my blog. Unfortunately, the photos are a little jumbled up.

 

 

                              The above photo shows the famous Half Dome and El Capitan.

 This is the view from the top of Glacier Point looking down into the valley approx 3,000 feet below.

Yosemite Falls is the tallest waterfall in Yosemite dropping 2,425 feet from the top of the upper fall to the bottom of the lower fall.

 

 I forget the name of the above waterfall. It may be Bridal Veil

 

I like the above photo because it looks as though as though he is jumping for joy at being able to catch the berry in its mouth.

                                                                             A jay.

 

So ends a lovely day at Yosemite National Park. On the way back to the motel we passed this road sign and got a chuckle out of it.

 The next day we headed off to Sequoia National Park/King's Canyon National Park which has some of the oldest trees on earth. Unfortunately, we went in at the wrong entrance and did not get to see one of the main attractions, the General Grant Tree. The General Grant tree is the largest giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) in the General Grant Grove section of Kings Canyon National Park in California and the second largest tree in the world.
We did see the General Sherman Tree which has some wonderful statistics: It is 275 feet tall, has a diameter of 36 feet at its base, a circumference of 102 feet and its largest branch has a diameter of 7 feet, larger than most of the trees east of the Mississippi. It is guesstimated that it is between 2,000-2,500 years old.

 I could not get all of the tree in one photo so the above picture is of the lower part of the tree and the one below, the top part of the tree.

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The only other thing of interest we saw was Tunnel Rock which was a large dislodged boulder resting on two rocks and creating a tunnel.
Well, I think this is enough for this blog. Next stop Anaheim and Disneyland with our son, David and his wife, Sara.

Redwoods

Yesterday, we began our long journey to California's western coastline. To get there we had to go through the Redwood National and State Forest. The Redwood trees are the tallest in the world topping out at 200 to 300 ft. The largest tree in this forest is 286 feet in height, 21.7 feet in diameter and has a circumference of  74.5 feet. It's estimated age is 1,500 years. Boy, what stories it could tell. The following photos do not do the trees any justice in showing their height.

                              The above photo gives you some perspective on the height of the trees.

The photo above shows me standing in front of a fallen tree's roots. You can see how large the roots were.

Whilst at the visitor centre getting my National Park's Passport Book stamped I overheard the Park Ranger telling someone that there were some bull moose nearby. I hastened with my passport stamping not wanting to miss a chance of a good photograph. The result was the following-

We continued on through the Redwoods and came across a fallen tree with a tree growing out of it's side.

The tree growing out of its side was itself very tall..

The above photo shows a limb growing out of the side of the tallest tree. It was the size of a large tree.
After leaving the Redwoods we made our way to California and spent the night at Crescent City. There was not much to photograph as the city was hit with a Tsunami in 2011. I did come across a mother squirrel and her two offspring who were hiding in a hole in a bank side.

We drove down to Crescent City's harbour and saw some seals relaxing on dock made especially for them. Seals are smaller than sea lions.

Today, we left Crescent City and planned to drive to the Pacific Ocean along the famous highway 1. The road turned out to be quite exhausting to drive due to the many sharp turns and bends. I am glad I was not driving as I would have had many cars behind me because I was going so slow. The road ran along the coast and gave you great views of the Pacific Ocean.

Well, we made it to Berkeley without any incidents but tired after the long, winding road. Because we were tired, especially Gary after having to drive route 1, we decided to go into San Francisco the following day, Saturday.
Saturday arrived bright, sunny and warm. The weather forecast temperatures to be in the high 70s, which is unusual for San Francisco. We decided to use the train and bus to go into the city to save Gary having to drive and battle the traffic. Before leaving the hotel we found out that the city was flooded with visitors due to the Gay Parade tomorrow. So, we made a wise choice to use the public transport.
Arriving in San Francisco we decided to visit the Golden Gate Bridge first. Luck was with us and the bridge was not hidden in fog. At the time of its opening in 1937, it was both the longest and the tallest suspension bridge in the world, with a main span of 4,200 feet (1,280 m) and a total height of 746 feet (227 m). The length of the cables that hold the bridge could go around the earth 3 times.
 There also was a nice garden overlooking the bridge which is celebrating its 81st year.

There were several tourist areas we wanted to see: Lombard Street (the windiest road in the U.S.), the seal lions on Pier 39, and the cable cars. Prior to seeing the tourist areas we decided to take a boat ride to the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. The trip lasted an hour and was well worth the $15 each we paid for the trip.

                                                                      Alcatraz.

The crossing across the Bay on the boat was a little rough due to the swift current and the large waves and wake coming from other tour boats. The view of the city upon our return was spectacular but, unfortunately I did not have my telephoto lens with me so the city in my photo is a little far away.

After the boat ride we went in search of pier 39 where we had heard the sea lions liked to hang out. To get there we passed a beach and swimmers who were braving the cold water of the bay. I did not know that San Francisco even had a beach.

It took us a while to find the sea lions but when we did there was not as many of them as I had imagined. I read that most of the sea lions were males and they could weigh up to 850lbs and be 7ft long whilst the females if there were any, would be 200lbs and 6ft long. I was surprised at the difference in weight between the males and females.

Our next stop was to see the cable cars and Lombard Street. The cable cars ran on Hyde Street which is a steeply inclined hill. We had an hour to wait to ride the cable car so we decided to walk up or, should I say shuffle up the hill. And shuffle we did taking frequent rest breaks. The cable car passed us on our climb up and people were hanging off the side. It seems to be a San Francisco tradition to hang off the side of the cable car.

We finally made it to Lombard Street out of breath and tired so took a short break before descending down the steps. As I have mentioned before, Lombard Street is the windiest road in the U.S.. It descends one block and has 8 hairpin turns before reaching the next street. The sun was at the wrong angle so my photos did not do the street justice.

On the way to Lombard Street we passed a bicycle for hire shop and got a kick out of its name - "Blazing Saddles".

Tomorrow, Sunday we are off to Yosemite National Park.

Crater Lake

What an absolutely perfect day. It started at 6:30am when the alarm went off. We headed 102 miles south to Crater Lake hoping to get there before the thunderstorms arrive (per the weather forecast). Prior to arriving at Crater Lake we passed the Newberry National Volcanic Monument. Curious as to what it was,  we turned in and was pleasantly surprised with what we found- lava beds and the core of a very old, extinct volcano. the Newberry Volcano. It was designated a National Park on November 5th, 1990 and reminded us of the lava beds in Hawaii.

Leaving Newberry National Volcanic Monument we arrived at Crater Lake around 10am after a good, uneventful journey. We were greeted by this wonderful sight:

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The lake was smooth as glass and had not a hint of ripples on it making it a photographer's delight. We were so lucky with the weather and had beaten the forecasted thunderstorms that arrived around 1pm whilst we were eating a nice lunch at the Crater Lodge. The thunderstorms even brought hailstones with them.
The crater was formed 7,700 years ago when the volcano erupted and the volcano walls collapsed into the hot lava. One part of the crater sides was made up of pumice. Boy, could it remove a lot of
dry skin from one's feet!!! The lake is the deepest in the U.S. being 1,943 feet deep at the deepest point. The tallest point on the rim is 1,978 feet above the lake, the lowest point 507 feet. The crater is 6.02 miles across at the maximum point and 4.54 miles at the minimum.

Crater lake gets 44 feet of snow per year often burying the lodge up to the first floor in a single snow storm. I had Gary stand next to the snow plough guides and you can see how tall they were.

We had our picture taken with a reflection of the lake in the background. I thought it was a nice photo of both of us.

On the way down from the lake we passed a roller skater doing 35mph downhill. He was either very brave or very stupid, I am not sure which.

After our visit to the crater, we made our way to the Redwoods in California. We passed a gorge which was very picturesque. There was a walk along side of the gorge and I was pleased to be able to catch a small rainbow at one point.

The gorge had huge rocks at either side of the stream and out of the rocks were growing trees, large trees. Apparently, they bury their roots very deep into the rock and suck out what moisture they can.

What would a blog be without a photo of a bird? It was a Clark's Nutcracker, a bird that is native to the western half of the U.S.

We had a really lovely day today. The weather was with us, the food was great and the journey to the Redwoods in California, interesting. Tomorrow, we visit the Redwood National Park.