May 16 King's Canyon National Park

 

Today we decide to drive to King’s canyon.  Because of road closures in the parks, one can’t just drive from one right into the other one like one normally would.  In Sequoia, the roads are closed due to washed out areas.  In King’s Canyon, they are closed due to excessive snow that hasn’t melted.  So, Drive out of Sequoia, around into town, up to the Northern edge of King’s Canyon and drive in there.  What would usually take about 45 minutes of beautiful scenery is 2 hours of going through the flat orange groves and some traffic. 

Once at the park we visit the stand of Sequoias that we  can access.  We can’t get to General Sherman but we can get to General Grant.  They are huge.  We hear several different languages.  German, French, Spanish, one of the Asian languages.  And, oh, English too.  I really prefer the stand of Red Woods near Janet and Alex’s place in Merrin County.  Huge trees, few people and you can go right up to them, walk inside them.  These are a bit bigger but once you get to huge, it’s just more huge and huger.

Back at the visitor’s center, we get some recommendations of hikes.  The one to Hume Lake sounds like our speed.  About 3 miles, mostly flat and a pretty lake.  We drive about 20 minutes to the trail head where we can see the lake.  It is a stream that loggers dammed and is now a beautiful lake that supports lots of wild life.  We enjoy our picnic lunch at the edge of the lake and continue around the lake.  One area of the lake is a Christian camp.  No campers now but I’m sure when they are there, it really affects the atmosphere of the area.  We were almost all the way around the lake when we came to the raging water gushing into the lake.  We had been wondering where the water came from to make such a large lake.  Then we came to the dam.  It was constructed in the mid 1800’s and used several arches to strengthen the dam without using as much material. 

We head back to Sequoia park and our campsite.  We have groceries for one more dinner and we’re going to be there 2 more nights.  We decide that tonight is the night for a restaurant meal since we’re already out of the park anyway.  We aren’t really ready for dinner so we stop at a Starbucks to relax and take advantage of their free internet.  I get most of my pictures uploaded from my phone to my computer so I can post them on this blog.  I’ve been typing the text in word and transferring it to the blog when I have internet. 

We go to a nice Japanese restaurant for dinner.  Sashimi bento box for me.

We’re starting to match our sleep cycle to something that resembles daylight and darkness.  It’s dark so time for bed.