The Gorge day 2

The reason these weird formations are here is as follows: Many years ago, some time before Trump was born, this area was underwater. A large deep lake. Some long lasting volcanic activity deposited ash 1400 feet deep in the lake. The lake drained or dried up or something and left the thick layer of dried ash. It eroded over time into what we have now. This place has been a park since the '30s. The CCC was involved in making it a park. The campground has 22 sites and only 4 of them are occupied. This place is out there, way off the beaten path. We did a long hike this morning. Jenny thought me climbing that pinnacle would make a good pic. We are here one more day.

Cathedral Gorge State Park

Once you get out of Las Vegas and off the interstate the Nevada roads become pretty lonely. 85% of the land in Nevada is owned by the Federal government and as far as I could tell their doing nothing with it. We did have a scare right before we got here. The Sprinter lost power and I had a hard time getting up hills. The turbos quit. At least that's what I think happened. It's called limp home mode. We had several very long up hills and down hills and I was trying not to brake too much on the down hills so I used the engine brake to control my speed. I'm not sure that was the issue but I had a nice chat with the Google AI and she suggested a reboot. I think it worked. If the Turbos are fried so are we. This park has a number of trails, all of them are bikable. I will bike and we will hike some of them tomorrow.

Yermo California

On our way in we stayed here for one night. I think I mentioned we have to somehow get around Death Valley. We could have gone around it on the North side but there are a few things we want to see along the southern route. We are in the Desert and will be for awhile. It was 110° here today. We have to drive through Las Vegas tomorrow on our way to Cathedral George State Park. We have reservations for 3 nights there. When I made the reservation the park looked interesting but I'm not sure now, that it's going to hold our interest for 3 hot days. Cell and wifi might be a problem. There are 3 small towns near the park: Panaca, Pioche, and Caliente. Neither one of those places gives me any confidence that a Cell company would invest  money to insure the residents can make a phone call. I didn't take a single pic today. I'll see what I can find. More tomorrow-- maybe.

Lemon Cove day 5

Jenny and I both decided we didn't want to do either one of those drives again, so we didn't. We found a park in a small town near us that had a trail around a lake. That was today's hike. Of course it was 105° so we had the trail to ourselves. Our return trip home starts tomorrow. If we were to drive straight there it would be something like 2600 miles. We have planned several stops that make the drive something other than straight. We are probably 3 weeks from Habersham. I took not one picture today. It was just one of those days. Oh, I did get a haircut today in Vasalia. I am in the database of "Sport Clips" I just used the app and they knew what I wanted and I checked in and moved to the head of the line. It was sweet for me but sucked for the poor fools who weren't in their database. We are back in Barstow tomorrow. A couple of days ago we hiked the Congress Trail in Sequoia. There were two groups of trees along the trail that were named. These are pics of those groups of trees.

Kings Canyon

Last night Jenny paid for and downloaded an app that was a tour of Kings Canyon. Using her phones GPS the app knew where we were and gave us relevant information about what was coming up. It was pretty amazing. Anyway, that was cool but the drive up to the entrance station was another Angels Landing adventure. We are camped at 2000 and the Sequoias grow above 6000. I literally got a cramp in my right hand from gripping the steering wheel. Kings Canyon is a real canyon. The King river flows through the canyon. John Muir was very familiar with this area and played a part in having it protected. We drove up the canyon to a place called Roads End. It was the end of the road. At that point we had to return around and head home. We were out for 9 hours. We are both beat. Tomorrow is our last full day here. Not sure what we'll do 

Lemon Cove day 3

Today was a chill day. We drove into Visalia, the only real city close to us, and bought a few things. We did a few administrative tasks (laundry) and gave some thought to tomorrow. It's a pretty good drive to the visitor center at Kings Canyon, a little over an hour. That's our plan for tomorrow. I took no pics today. These were taken by Jenny on the houseboat.

Sequoia National Park

A lot to cover today. We headed for the park at around 9. The line of cars backed up at the entrance station was over a mile long. It took us 45 minutes to enter. Not a good sign. The 25 mile drive, gaining 4000 feet, is a nail biter. Dozens of 10 MPH hairpin turns made me think the road was an automotive Angels Landing. I had a trailhead in mind when we started the drive. When we finally got there, there was one parking spot left in the entire lot. We nabed it. We were out for 5 hours and saw a bunch of big trees. Our first stop was The General Sherman tree. It is the largest tree on the planet. 37 foot diameter, 103 foot circumference

estimated weight of 1400 tons, 2300 years old. There was a very long line of mostly Japanese tourists waiting to have their picture taken in front of it. Sadly, we didn't get in line. There were very many, very big, Sequoias that we saw on our hike that we did photograph. Too many actually. See pics. Today was so stressful that we are thinking about taking tomorrow off. I really don't want to do that drive again. We are here to also visit Kings Canyon. Hopefully, that drive won't be as exciting. More tomorrow.