Sep 4, 2012 Last updated: 9/8/12 9:00pm PT
Day 4 takes us to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. We first drove into Kings Canyon. I thought we’d have great views into the canyon, but it turns out the road is at the bottom of the canyon, not the top. It was a very nice drive, but no spectacular views.
Kings Canyon National Park
Giant Sequoias only grow on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. They are shorter than the Giant Redwoods on the California coast, but are more massive and are considered to be the largest trees in the world in terms of volume. I like the coastal redwoods better.
Sequoia National Park
The sequoias have branches that are the size of normal trees.
The General Sherman Tree is the most massive living organism on Earth at 275 ft high, 36.5 feet in diameter. Look for people at the bottom of the picture on the left.
We got stuck in some road construction in the park. It’s hard to fix roads that hang off the side of a mountain. So they close the whole road and only let cars through the construction zone every hour. Of course we just missed the travel window, so we were stuck for almost an hour. It got very hot in the sun. Temperatures were in the upper-80’s. Eventually we made it back to Fresno, where temperatures were over 100.
Dinner was at Dog House Grill in Fresno, near the California State University. Big portions, reasonable prices. This place was very good. They were so busy they had two parking lot attendants. This was not valet, just two guys pointing you to open spaces. And we’re not talking a Walmart sized parking lot either, just a McDonald’s sized parking lot.