We drove from Julian to Three Rivers, Ca just outside the entrance to the Sequioa National Park on Friday August 17th.  Long drive but an uneventful one which is good.

It’s even hotter here than it was in Julian, they’d been having highs of 104-106 and Friday it was a bit cooler (ha!) at 98.  So we were really glad our A/C is again working.

On Saturday we went into the Sequioa National Park.  I drove to give Jeff a break as he’s done all the driving so far.  Very windy road and you start at about 1,000ft and end up over 5,000ft!

There was constructions going on and a couple of miles of that narrow, very windy road was down to one lane and delays of about 20 minutes while folks going the other direction made their way through the construction area, then we went.  Luckily the place where we had to stop and wait had a fabulous view of Morro Rock. A different Morro Rock than the one in the beach near Morro Bay of course, but just as magnificent!

We went into the “Giant Forest” and as far as the General Sherman Tree area.  The parking area to go see the General Sherman tree is about .5 miles away from the tree itself, so there’s a hike to see it, but downhill all the way.  The tree itself, and many others in that area, is truly magnificently huge!  Jeff exclaimed several times that he’d seen pictures and knew they would be big, but until you actually stand under them and see how large around and how tall they really are you can’t imagine what it’s really like.  The park service made the trail very nice because in addition to a choice to hike back UPhill .5 miles to reach your car there’s a very slight downhill trail to some accessible parking and a shuttle will take you back to your vehicle.  That’s what I wanted…no uphill strenuous hike for me!

The temperature change from the lower area where it was mid-90s to the Giant Forest where it was sprinkling and about the mid-60s was interesting.  We hadn’t expected that much of a change, but it felt REALLY nice to have a cool breeze and some rain and it made the forest smell really good.  It was fortunate as well for Laddy – we took him on the drive with us and he was very comfortable staying in the car while we hiked down to see the General Sherman tree…dogs not allowed on the trails!

We took lots of pictures and they are in some separate posts.