Yosemite/Sequoia Birthday Trip
So, this last weekend, my dad and brother took me to Yosemite and Sequoia for my birthday. Thursday, I left work early to drive up to LA to meet them at David's work. The traffic was horrible even though I left at 2:45pm. Yuck, I don't ever want to do that again.
We drove thru the night and stayed in a crappy Motel 6 in Fresno. I know that the 6 is a low end motel, but this was compounded by being a low end Motel 6. I slept terribly.
The next morning we dragged out of bed and made the rest of the drive from Fresno to Yosemite. We arrived about 9am and had breakfast in Oakhurst, just outside of the park. The day was amazing...we visited Glacier Point, which had a great view of all the wonderful waterfalls of Yosemite. We then ventured down into the valley to visit Bridal Veil Falls...which was generating so much mist it was like getting rained on sideways. We had lunch in the valley and swarms of mosquito's attacked us, more specifically, David, who was eaten alive. So we retreated and went to Yosemite falls, which was more majestic and less...wet. Still very misty though. We went to the Mariposta Grove to visit the trees. Very very cool. The trees were huge!
We decided to head back to Oakhurst where our campsite was located and start dinner and get ready for bed. We checked in late and didn't have any firewood to start a fire. David had brought some charcoal but we had some really nice neighbors that gave us some Eucaliptis and Oak to burn in our fire pit. We roasted hot dogs and had some beer and then went off to bed. I actually had better sleep that night in the tent in my old military sleeping bag than I did in the hotel in Fresno. Much better.
The next day we woke up and decided that we had seen all the good points of Yosemite and decided to go to Sequoia. We had breakfast again in Oakhurst and then headed out. Sequoia was really cool, the trees were much larger than the ones in Yosemite. We went to see the Grant Grove, which included General Grant and General Sherman, the largest organism by volume in the world. Pretty incredible. Then we went to the Giant Forest which was just more huge trees. We did a 3 mile hike loop around the Forest. Got some great pics. We headed home about 5pm or so.
We stopped at a fruit stand near the grapevine and bought some of the best tasting fruit I've ever had in my life. A few hours later we stopped in a small town to eat dinner, then headed back to LA. Dad and I stayed at David's for the night and then the next morning (Monday) we headed to SD.
It was a great trip. This was my first trip to see redwoods and it won't be my last. I loved it, it was a great birthday present. Dad left on the following day, Tuesday at 6am. I wish it could have lasted a month! :)