Monday, October 4 - Day 32

The Lodge was cozy. They had a fire in the fireplace and that was where we could connect to the internet. They had pillows in the chairs with snowmen on them. There is a chill in the air but not sure it's time for snowmen!

In the middle of the night, Dave woke up and stated that we had lost power at the Lodge. It was off for at least 1 hour and we got a thunder and lightening storm – not sure if that was the culprit. Able to go back to sleep until 8 and woke up to a light mist and heavy fog. Had breakfast and then watched the visitor center film “Bears of Sequoia”, which discussed the need to not let bears learn to eat human food because they will eventually have to be destroyed due to being aggressive and not afraid of humans.

Left there in the rain and fog and were going to go to Kings Canyon but as we started on that road, we saw a park maintenance vehicle coming toward us plowing the road. There was a light sheet of hail on the road and the fog would have prevented us from seeing anything from the overlooks. So we headed to Sequoia National Park and visited the Sherman Tree – the largest thing by volume in the world. One of its branches is 7 feet around! Going down the trail to see the Sherman Tree there were other sequoias that we could view as well as a stump which Dave stood in front of and looked dwarfed.

Before we got to the Mojave Desert we went through Tehachapi, an old railroad town going through the Tehachapi Mountains. It is an area known as the Tehachapi-Mohave Wind Resource Area, site of more than 4,500 wind turbines. From a distance it looked like poles on top of the hills but as we neared you could see thousands of blades spinning. Many more here than there are in Lowville!

Dave here- what a great day!

To better appreciate the size of these trees, a few statistics are in order. The General Sherman is 311 feet high with a trunk diameter at the base of 35 feet and a circumference of 104 feet. There are taller trees in the Redwood Forest but they do not have the bulk of the Sequoias. The General Grant Tree has a 40 foot diameter trunk. We walked to the base of the General Sherman down a steep path a half mile long and then walked amongst the giant trees in that forest. I told Lisa, and she concurred, that it made me feel like we do when we are underwater and encounter a large sea creature, such as a whale shark. There is a feeling of admiration which I seldom experience.

Route 198 is a classic serpentine mountain road with hundreds of switchbacks. The fog was so thick and it was raining that often the only way to keep the car in our lane was to concentrate on the center yellow line. The top speed I could go was about 20 mph and this lasted for a couple of hours to finally get to the valley floor. It was awful and I was glad it was over.

We are crossing the Mojave Desert right now headed toward the Grand Canyon and will spend the night in Barstow, CA.

That's all for now.