withoutwhatifs

Driving to Sequoia didn’t take long. We stopped really quickly in some little town for Murphy to run around at a park, and for Tara and I to grab lunch. We stopped at a place called Crabbie Cakes I think? Whatever, it wasn’t that bad of a place, Tara, Murphy and I sat on the deck (which was covered and it poured the whole time so that worked out) we got some crab cakes (like we had a choice… the place was called Crabbie Cakes.. it would be like going to McDonalds and not ordering the BigMac…) Anyways, I’m developing a problem with hamburgers that I’ve been getting at these places. Granted a hamburger is a sandwich of sorts and it’s something that you should be able to eat in it’s entirety, but on more than one occasion, w have been served our burgers, the waitress asks if I’d like another beer, and by the time she gets back with the beer… I’m eaten my burger… entirely. Usually I”m just milling through the remaining fries on my plate and I usually get a look like “Whoa, when was the last time he ate”… the answer is about 3 hours ago… it was just a tiny burger… $13 for a burger.. you should have to roll me out of the place. Enough about that mediocrity of Burgers that we’re willing to accept these days. Actually, no, as a firm stand on the great burger debate that’s facing our country today… Octave Grill in Winchestertonfieldville (Chesterton) Indiana. They make a great burger, you eat it, you leave full… not looking for your next meal.

I’m so far off track right now…

It was really only about a 3 hour drive from Yosemite to Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park. (moving forward, they’ll be referred to as Sequoia because it’s like the longest NP name there is) We arrived at the entrance, and of course, scour the campsites board.  Tons of campgrounds, tons closed given the time of the year. But don’t fret, we’re good, Azalea seems to have sites open and it’s that far from the “stuff” we want to see. Sequoia is laid out similar to Yellowstone in that you can drive to each thing you want to see, well, at least the big name stuff, and it’s usually just a short walk (hike, they call it) down a well groomed (concrete stairs) path to the attraction. So we get to the campground and I throw my usually tantrum about the site, and not being able to get a good one, and I’m pissed about our site while Tara is telling me it’s fine…. it ended up being one of the best sites at the campground, because it was one of very few that was flat. Once we had parked, we watched people for hours trying to finagle their massive RVs, or their rented vans into the same spots but found it impossible to level out and moved on… we ended up with a great spot. We went over to the store and grabbed a couple quick things to make dinner and breakfast while were going to be in the park, and headed back. Still recovering from that monstrous 2.2mile hike of Sentinel Dome at Yosemite earlier that day.

The next morning, Tara and I got up and…. get this… we went for a run. Yeah, no shit. We ran… like, for fitness. It did not go well. So far this trip’s “fitness” has consisted of fitin’is whole pizza in my belly with a 6 pack. (ok it’s not that bad but you get the idea) So we ran… for like a solid 8 minutes ( you thought it was going to be 8 miles… grow up reader) and we took Murphy to get him tired out because we’d be leaving him to watch the fort today while we went through the park.

Run was done and we were off. First stop, Moro Rock. I knew nothing about Moro Rock. Tara had read me a couple blurbs about it while we were in the car, but none of them prepared me, or Tara for that matter, for what we were about to do. Moro Rock is a massive rock overlook with a welded steel railing that follows along cut outs, switchbacks, man made steps, naturally made cracks and crevices, all while ascending to the top. There are a number of areas where the park just assumed the railing wasn’t needed because of the rocks along the edge, and also in other spots it appears that only smurfs would be traveling this route as is indicated by the welding railing that’s roughly two feet off of the rock… awesome,… because it’s not like you can’t fall over that… The other crazy part is that this is a totally self monitored outlook. Tara and I are not only trying to get our nerves together to get to the top of the rock, but we’re brushing elbows and fighting for room with people who are coming down from the top. There were some parts that I actually held onto the rock as some Europeans passed by. (seriously, it’s like all of Europe is still on vacation… in the National Parks)

After the rock we stopped at the “AutoTree” which despite it’s Transformer sounding name was cool, but again, tourists made this an almost frustrating experience… I’m just trying to drive through a tree. So Tara jumps out to take a picture of the truck and I drive around to get in line, which is two cars and me… car one, pulls up, Thumbs up out the window, and moves on, Car 2, pulls up, parks, driver gets out of his rented 2012 Mustang, and leans against the car. I don’t know how many pictures are being taken, but there is a plethora of poses being thrown out… so many hand gestures. Then, driver swaps positions with the photographer… and we do the whole thing again… we’re fixing our sweatshirt… “Is my hood right?”, “Take one with my smiling”, “take one with  me not smiling”… “Take one with me going like this…” Then, out of nowhere… get this, tourist number 3, who’s not even with tourist 1 or 2, asks if he can have his picture taken with the rental Mustang… I’m a pretty impatient guy… and I’m working on that… but this sent me through the roof… I did not lay on my horn and drive my Silverado straight through the rear end of their Rent-a-stang, but my God did I want to. Finally, Tourist 1 & 2 get back in the car and speed off… then slam on their brakes because it’s congested and people are everywhere, but it was a great exit… kind of. Now it’s my turn. I drive up, head out the window with a smile… maybe I waved, Tara took the picture and we were off… we’ve got things to see today.

 

We also stopped to walk through some of the Sequoia groves, and to check out one that had fallen over…not because from bad weather or wind, but because sequoias have extremely shallow roots. The thing was huge.

Now to the museum. Actually, there’s not a whole lot to talk about at the museum. It was pretty cool, but we were here for the Sherman-ator. The General Sherman Tree to be exact. So that’s where we headed next. The tree is just a short walk through the woods from the parking lot and there are mobs of people. So naturally Tara and I are a bit turned off, but we gotta do it… we have to see the tree. So we head down and we see the tree, and it’s incredible. Just beyond massive in size and take a few moments to just kind of stand there… looking up of course. I don’t really know what else to say about it… it was pretty incredible. Trying to understand how a tree can live to become a size of 275’ tall, with a circumference (around the bottom) of 102’.

We grabbed lunch at one of the visitor center/lodge/stores at Lodgepole. Then headed back to Murphy to start looking at our next leg. The next part of the trip, Tara and I are considering a vacation from the road trip. We’re heading to Big Sur, CA. A couple days along the central coast of California where men like Henry Miller and Jack Kerouac spent some of their days. It’s supposed to be beautiful, with the most incredible coastline that you could imagine. I hope it is. This trip is great and going really well, but it’ll be nice to dig our feet in at one location for a couple days and not feel so “on the move”.

Next – Big Sur…