California Day 1

Jay's note after reading my blog: It is a different tone than most of your blogs. I don’t know what it is? Maybe you aren’t being a sarcastic @$$hole in these?

Gee, thanks sweetie.  Moving right along...

Our first full day in California – and I woke up at 3:30.


Since the Lodge was in the National Park, there were very few cable channels available, no cell service, and no internet. I picked a crappy cable channel and just hung out till Jay woke up 3 hours later. We got ready and headed to the lodge for breakfast. I ate; Jay took advantage of the free wifi in the Lodge.

Our first stop of the day was for gas – since we didn’t fill up coming into the park, we headed to the Hume Lake area. It’s the only place in the park that has a gas station. Lucky for us, gas wasn’t the only thing that Hume Lake had going for it.

We then headed toward the General Grant area, first stopping in the park information gift shop and museum. A park ranger was filling in while the normal cashier went to lunch, and she talked to us for a while – giving us a lot of useful and interesting information about the area.

Before heading to Grant Grove, I dipped into the grocery store for peanuts and a coke to help out with the dipping blood sugar. We then visited the post office and bought post card stamps. The sign above the counter said “Sarcasm is one of the many services we offer here.” And the post office dude didn’t disappoint. He ended up letting us stamp the post mark ourselves and didn’t make (too much) fun of us when we sent a post card to ourselves.

The Grant Grove area was our first glimpse of the giant sequoias. I made Jay pull off and get a picture of me standing in one of the trees.

Are you ready for the zoomed out version?  Look for me in the orange shirt waving my arms at the bottom of the pictures.

Then it was on to the General Grant – the 2nd largest tree in the world. (Our park ranger friend explained that while the California was officially listed as #2, since the last study was done, the California had lost significant enough mass to drop it off the list.)

I'm still the orange and brown speck at the bottom of the tree.

Driving through King’s Canyon, we were able to see Roaring River Falls, and then turned around at the Road End.

Grizzly Falls impressed us more than the Roaring River Falls due to its height. Jay made me stand in most of the pictures he took (of the trees, falls, whatever) to add perspective.

Dark was starting to fall, so we returned to the Lodge for a swanky dinner that was more pricey than good. I was disappointed that the fireplace wasn’t lit.

Then we headed into the lobby area so that Jay could catch up on work. Since my dad and Jay agreed that I must not be left alone in evil California, I had to sit in one of the lobby chairs while Jay worked. We wouldn’t want someone breaking into our room and stealing me now would we?

I was so tired from the day’s activities (and remember I was up at 3:30 that morning) that after a chapter in my book I couldn’t hold my eyes open any more. I pulled my feet up into the chair, folded my arms across my knees and fell asleep.

If you're interested in nature photography, or just have a couple of hours to kill - you can view all of the day's photos by clicking here.