And now for some Waterfalls! Yosemite National Park.

Reno, NV

We decided we had seen enough trees and that we needed some waterfalls in our lives, so we headed next to Yosemite National Park and the promise of spectacular falls.  And they did still have trees too. And supposedly bears. We started with a day in Yosemite Valley

Vernal Falls... way back there.

The valley has all the big famous sites that everyone associates with Yosemite. It's also so popular that visiting it in July is a little more like visiting a Disney Park than it is like really getting out and communing with nature on any level, minus all the Disney employees who are obsessively cleaning up after those who like to throw their water bottles, kleenexes and candy wrappers on the ground. Even at our arrival time of 10 am it was immediately clear that parking was already scarce, so when we found a spot, we parked and left the car in favor of the shuttle buses that circle the valley all day (and well into the night). We hiked first up to Vernal Falls, along with approximately 1,000 others, some of whom were actually pushing strollers up an admittedly paved, but very steep trail. Vernal falls was pretty... but the paved portion of this trail only took us to a bridge from which we could see the falls way off in the distance. Maybe we should have gone further. But we didn't. We also saw Yosemite Falls and Bridal Veil Falls, neither of which was a hike, but rather short walks. At each of the falls there were dire warning signs everywhere about what could happen to you if you dared to climb on the rocks around the falls or wade in the water and still people were crawling all over those rocks, it was a little detracting from the beauty of the falls themselves. We did hike to one other water feature, but it wasn't a fall, we went to Mirror lake where some of us waded blissfully in the cool water.  In most cases, bridal veil falls being the exception, we rode a packed bus to each destination, and hiked/walked with hundreds of others to our destinations.

Wapama Falls

Our goal for day two in the park was double fold: to ditch most of our fellow park visitors and to get up close to a waterfall. Hetch Hetchy came through for us on both counts. Hetch Hetchy is in the northern part of Yosemite, has its own entrance, and in comparison to Yosemite Valley is a lonely place. We hiked to Wapama Falls and only saw a handful of other hikers the whole way in and back. The hike goes first over the O'Shaughnessy Dam and then through an old train tunnel, which was a fabulous start. From there it is about 2.5 miles to the falls and a good portion of it was in direct sun and walking across ankle wrenching rocky trail. I admit I wondered, given the falls we had seen in the valley the day before if this was going to be worth it. It totally was. There are several bridges across the bottom of the falls and at least one of them was soaking wet and regularly getting splashed, we stood there a long time after our hot sweaty hike in.

We finished Yosemite on a third day by driving all the way through the park and over Tioga Pass on our way to Reno, Nevada, stopping at Olmsted Point and Tenaya Lake (because apparently I can never resist a chance to wade in ice cold water). We searched in vain as we drove for some of those bears the park kept warning us were there but which they obviously have hidden somewhere. Our wildlife sightings in our three days in Yosemite were restricted to deer, squirrels, blue jays, lizards and a snake. Cool, but bears would have been better.

Even Bigger trees. Sequoia National Park.

Groveland, California

We can all now fairly confidently identify a few different types of giant trees including Cedars, Redwoods, and Sequoias, as well as some other less spectacular ones. We aren't experts, but we are definitely more aware than we were when we started thinking about a trip to the California national parks. We have climbed and walked through and over these trees and even squeezed in the space between three intertwined sequoias and looked up at the sky revealed way up high among the branches. We can tell you that a sequoia forest smells amazing (and a little like Lowes), and that in a redwood forest you will sometimes come unexpectedly upon spectacular maple trees draped with moss.


We spent two days last week exploring Sequoia and King's Canyon national parks as well as Sequoia national monument and national forest (another thing we are learning, the differences between National parks, forests and monuments... not all that much to someone who is visiting them really, except maybe that the parks are more visited and have better roads). On our first day we climbed to the top of Moro Rock, Saw the General Sherman tree and then the lesser visited General Grant tree and finally a big stump on Big Stump Trail which was probably not THE big stump for which the trail is named, but we were tired and on our way out of the park for the day so as soon as we saw A big stump, we took some pictures and headed back to our car. General Sherman is, of course the biggest tree in the world and so you sort of have to go see it, but everyone else feels the same way and so its a pretty popular trail. Grant's grove and tree however are in the less visited King's Canyon park (adjacent to and ran as one park with Sequoia) and the walk here was really much nicer and the trees still plenty as impressive as in Sherman's grove. I am sure this is an fine opportunity to make some sort of joke about the two generals for which the trees are named... but I've got nothing.

Definitely a big stump even if it wasn't the big stump

Walking towards the roots of a fallen tree

What I really liked best as far as seeing Sequoia trees was when we went the next day into the National Forest instead and walked through the Trail of 100 Giants. This trail was much less crowded and probably because of that, the trees were less protected from us people and we could actually get up close with them. In the national park, especially near the Sherman tree, the trees are all fenced in to protect them. Here we walked through a tunnel that was the hollow center of a fallen tree, climbed right up on the top of a more recently fallen tree and took a walk all along it from top to upturned roots. It gives you a real good perspective of just how huge these trees are when you are looking down a good 20 feet to the forest floor from atop a fallen tree trunk hoping you don't fall and die. And this was also where we climbed into the open to the sky 'cave' formed in the center of three intertwined trees. We finished our day in the national forest with a harrowing drive up to Balch Park, which frankly wasn't really worth it, but we did walk around a pond and watch frogs leaping in from the shore which was entertaining but maybe not actually worth the death defying ride to get to them.

One Day tour of San Francisco

San Francisco, CA

We had just one day to see as much of San Francisco as we could and we didn't actually plan anything in advance. At all. In fact we were already over the Golden Gate bridge before I started to google anything about what to see and since the bridge is a toll bridge, we weren't really wanting to go back over to see anything on the north side, but that worked out perfectly. After a false start in which we actually paid to park near the bridge and then were warned by a police officer against leaving a car obviously full of luggage, we opted to start out with a driving tour that was, I am sure, a little all over the place and random, but it was fun, probably more so for those of us who were riding than for our driver.

Presidio. This was really just part of the recovery from our we're parking/no we're not incident, not sure it counts and it didn't warrant a picture

Chinatown. The oldest Chinatown on the continent? The biggest? Both? Something like that anyway, and the place that fortune cookies were invented. Unlike Chinatown in Vancouver, this was strictly a drive through, and we never once felt threatened by 'pig innards.'

Lombard Street. "The most crooked street in the world." I came to San Francisco knowing I wanted to see the bridge, but Kris had a few other landmarks on his list and this was one of them. Several switchbacks back and forth over a brick paved road. Admittedly cool.

Coit Tower. This old lookout tower was a great place to look down on the city and bay. Kris had to circle the parking area for a little while at first while the kids and I got out, but eventually we chased down some older couples who were leaving and claimed their spot. We didn't pay to go in the tower but there were viewing areas around the parking area.

Painted Ladies. Just a few of the really beautiful house fronts in the city and frankly, they aren't the most impressive, but they are the famous ones, go figure.

Haight Street and Ashbury. Apparently famous as the hangout of the Grateful Dead and for its general hippie-ness, again, Kris knew all this, I had no idea. The whole block smelled like pot, but the psychedelic storefronts are pretty fun.

Cable Car turntable. This would have worked better on foot, as it was we drove as close as we could and looked up the street as we went by. We got better looks at the cable cars later and accidentally.

Check in time at the hotel was 3, and it was only 2ish by the time we had finished all the drive by destinations we could google, so we decided to try our luck checking in early. We arrived at our hotel on the wharf by way of a narrow road with cars parked on either side and which featured 4 way stops at most intersections, that first climbed nearly vertically and then suddenly began to drop at basically the same grade. We couldn't get in our rooms, but we could leave our luggage at the front desk which left us free to leave our car parked somewhere without the concern of losing everything we own in a possible break-in.

So we headed back to the bridge and Crissy Field  by way of the super fancy schmancy houses on Marina street.

Golden Gate Bridge!!!! We parked at battery east parking lot at Crissy Field. Again. From here we could get great pictures of the bridge and it was a short walk to and then up and over it. It was surprisingly (to me) windy as we crossed. We went over and then back and then took a trail partway out to fort point and then out on torpedo wharf where we had a good view of Alcatraz.

After we moved into our rooms we headed out to explore Fisherman's Wharf and get some dinner

First stop was dinner at the Codmother, a fish and chips food truck that was simply amazing, the best fish and chips I have had in a long time. And it only got better as we looked at prices at restaurants along the wharf and realized that we had nearly paid half the rate at the restaurants.

We finished our day walking along the wharf and up to Ghirardelli square, saw a WWII submarine, cable cars, sea lions at pier 39 and the occasional street performer including a man perched on a milk crate on the sidewalk posing as a bush and periodically peeling back the branches he held over his upper body and face and growling at passers-by. We found the growling bush considerably more entertaining than the juggler who had himself an actual stage on the pier.

One day. Whew.

Redwoods!

Crescent City, California

Got up early yesterday and headed into Redwood Park. Which, by the way, is multiple parks. There is Redwoods National Park and then there are the Redwoods State Parks: Humboldt Redwoods State Park, Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, and Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, all clustered together up here in Northern California. Who knew? Well, probably lots of people, but I didn't. Also, there is no charge to get into any of these parks. I believe the only one we were not in today was Jedediah Smith. Maybe. Definitely we went through Prairie Creek and the national park. Early means we were out of here by about 8:40, so not so early.

We have sort of set a pattern for our days in the National parks: start with a decent hike, eat some lunch, and then drive through some scenic areas with a couple quick sites to see. The hike we picked for Redwoods was the Tall Trees Grove. The park allows only a limited number of vehicles to the trailhead everyday, and to be one of those vehicles we had to get ourselves a permit at a visitors center. There is a visitors center here in Crescent City where we are staying, but we left before it opened and ended up getting our permit at the Prairie Creek visitors center, but it really wasn't too difficult. We did have to listen to the dire warnings of bears and mountain lions being in the area and promise to call if we saw any, even as I am reading not to rely on my phone's GPS because it probably won't work out there, just like my phone itself won't.

The drive to the trailhead involves a narrow dirt road behind a locked gate that the nice lady at the visitor's center gave us "today's" code to. Do they actually change the combination from one day to the next? Maybe. But whatever, it certainly adds to the adventure to have to use a secret code to get through a locked gate to an unpaved road that leads to your destination. The hike itself was 4 miles: 1 1/2 to get to the grove (all down hill), a 1 mile loop through the grove, and then that 1 1/2 miles back to the car. But there are plenty of 'tall trees' all along the rote, not just withing the grove itself. The former tallest tree in the world, the Libby Tree, is in this grove of trees. Its been demoted since it both shrank AND taller trees have been discovered, still it is something like 360 feet high, nothing to be ashamed of. Two things that surprised me were the gorgeous moss draped maple trees at one end of the grove loop and the burnt redwoods. Redwood trees survive fire and so there are lots of obviously burnt trees still growing strong. We ate our lunch in the grove, sitting on a fallen redwood trunk,
legs dangling a good foot above the ground.

After we hiked our way back out, with basically no whiners whatsoever, we commenced our driving tour of the park stopping first at an overlook of the valley we had just hiked through. Then we tricked the kids into hiking an additional mile loop at the Lady Bird Johnson grove where the park was dedicated in 1969. Then back through the Drury Scenic Parkway and along the Coastal Loop Drive near Klamath (partially unpaved and really narrow and possibly in danger of falling into the sea soon....) where we got out to see the WW II radar station cleverly disguised as a farmhouse and barn. Then we headed home to eat and rest in our 70s throwback house on the harbor.