kleimontravels: California Road Trip

April 19, 2016 - Happy Birthday, Beatrice!

This weather just can't get any better, and we're not complaining! Our tour guide, Steve, with Sequoia Sightseeing, picked us up promptly at 8:30 this morning, and we headed out to Sequoia National Park & Kings Canyon. He explained that the first road into Sequoia was built by a group of original hippies, called Kaweah, who wanted to use the Giant Sequoia trees for lumber. He also pointed out that all of the melted snow running into the rivers is used for agricultural watering. He shared a quote from the early gold mining days, "Gold is worth fighting for, and water is worth dying for."

As we drove into the park we saw Tunnel Rock, which cars are no longer allowed to drive through, since one of the Cruise America (he affectionately called them Crash America) RVs side swiped the rock.

Steve dropped us off at the Visitor's Center/Museum while he went to pick up the other four folks on our tour. We learned a great deal about the trees, and I made a few purchases to help the local economy.

The next stop still has me thinking. As we were getting out of the van, Steve said to ONLY me, "I call this tree, The Giving Tree, based on the book by Shel Silverstein. Are you familiar with it?" Well, I immediately had chills running up and down my spine because, today is Beatrice's birthday, and years ago, for Mother's Day, I gave her that exact book, which she later gave back to me, the last time I saw her. Not only that, but Pearl posted a picture on Facebook of Beatrice planting a tree in Israel, and here we were looking at trees all day. Coincidental? Not so sure.

Anyway, here's the outside of The Giving Tree, as well as a shot from the hollow inside.

Next we traveled to "overhang rock" where Rob and I posed.

Then, while we drove over to Moro Rock, Steve gave us some more history of the park. Hale Thorp was the first European to come into Three Rivers (a very small town outside of the park) after his gold mining attempts failed. He took his cattle from Three Rivers to the park for summer grazing. While in the park, he worked with the Yocut Indians, creating the Hospital Rock, where he used herbs and bear fat as medicine. The Native Americans in the park were called the Manatchee, and they did not speak the same dialect as the Yocuts, but they were both peaceful tribes and traded obsidian, rabbit skins, and sea shells. Like many other Native Americans, the US Government, moved them onto reservations via a treaty for the Sierras all the way to the Pacific Coast. In 1903, the Army built the road from the Visitor's Center, using the Buffalo Soldiers under the command of an African American Captain (third of his race to graduate from West Point) Young. CPT Young was the park's superintendent from 1890 - 1916. Prior to the National Park Service being created in 1916 (we're lucky enough to be in some of our National Parks during this Centennial Celebration), the U.S. Army ran the parks. Once last trivia fact, Sequoia, is one of the few words in our language that contains all the vowels.

We arrived at Moro Rock, and I decided to hike to the top. What was I thinking? The elevation is 6,700 ft. and time after time as I rounded each corner, I was convinced that I reached the top!

The view was worth the hike up (which I officially counted as gym time) and I could see The Great Western Divide. What we didn't see were bears! Everyone kept looking, but no luck. So, Steve gave us some bear facts. Black bears are prevalent throughout the park, but they are actually many different colors ranging from black to blonde. The mother bear delivers her cubs while sleeping, and the babies are less than one pound each, and around eight inches long. She typically delivers two cubs, but can have any where from one to four. Now THAT is the way to have babies!