Saturday May 28

Hello Family and Friends,

We've made it to Merced, CA for the night.  It was a most surreal, stupid, stupendous, and silly day.

Surreal because:

we went from the calm and serene beauty of the pacific Pacific Ocean waves coming ashore in Coronado/North Island at Sea Level,

To over 7,000 feet above sea level, standing next to the largest living beings on earth... the Sequoia trees!  All in one day!

This is Adriana before the Sequoia twins, the two trees share the same base for about 10 feet...

Massive, overwhelming, totally impressive and out of this world feeling

Adriana at the 1/2 mile trail head that leads from the parking lot to General Sherman.

And in ARID California, we had rain!  A thunderstorm at 7,000 feet!  Loud!  

The little one was a bit frightened by the noise.

The size is not apparent here, but they are massive!

And tall!

This is the Guardian of the Sequoia valley.  You have to climb past him, up many thousands of feet to get to his precious Sequoias!  The road is very, very winding and can be difficult.

Going past 6,000 feet, up into the clouds!

We stopped at the welcome center and these mugs give good advice.

Sequoia, Kings and Yosemite are all tied together.  If you have the gumption, time, energy, money and courage, you could hike through all three!  Good Luck!

Adriana waiting for the ladies room which had a long, long line.  So long that two young ladies went into the men's room to help the process.  They were escorted out by a female ranger!  

Oh boy, it starts!

Here's proof!  Yep, we made it to the entrance, but it's another hour and 5,000 feet climb up winding and switchback roads to get to the massive Sequoias.

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Some of the roads were not in good shape, with rocks and out croppings coming right to the edge of the road.  They do get snow up here, lots of it last winter, which hurts the roads with pot holes, but does fill the rivers and reservoirs with much needed water.

Yes, that's us, at the base of the Mighty General Sherman, the 3rd or 4th largest living organism on earth!  You can see how wide the base is...

A picture of a once depleted reservoir that now has enough water for boats, swimming, etc.

The Golden Hills of California are covered with a fine grass that is dormant most of the year, with a nice golden brown color as you can see.

OK, so why STUPID?  Well, I made my sweetheart's day longer by rushing through the dang GPS set up before we left North Island.  It got us moving toward where I thought we wanted to go, Sequoia National Park, but I wrongly selected Sequoia National Monument.  That took us over 100 miles off course and cost us over 2 long, rough, bumpy hours over back roads and hills before we recovered and got back on track!  What a stupid I am!

Stupendous because, once we got on track, the ride up the Sierra Nevadas was just stupendous.  Incredible mountain views, a slow steady climb to over 7,000 feet, and those magnificent trees!

Silly because I thought we could combine the Sequoias AND also do Yosemite today!  Silly old sailor I be!  Well, mother nature put me in my place.  

So, tomorrow, we're up, breakfast, and then a run up the Yosemite Valley to El Capitan, Half Dome, waterfalls, and more.  Then a safe run over to San Francisco, THE Bridge, The Bridge, and what ever else we can fit in before R.O.N. at Beale AFB. 

Hope you are well, may God bless each of you with Love, Health, and Happiness!