Saturday, July 31, 2010

Wedding

This afternoon Sara and I attended Lisa and Andy's wedding, which was the inspiration for us to drive out from Yellowstone in the first place. The ceremony started at 6pm and was awesome. Very casual and very happy, a perfect wedding for two great people. They had it in their backyard and it was a perfect setting. All the food was also sustainably grown: catfish, BBQ pork, and [I never thought I would say this] a very delicious brussel sprout dish. It was really great to get to see them and Ellis, and we wish them many, many years of happiness.



We returned to Emily's place for a couple more hours of hanging out, then off to bed to get ready for our morning flight.

- Posted by Shawn from our iPad

Location:San Diego, CA

Pancakes and Burger Time

After a late night drive across the desert last night, we all rested for most of today. Emily being an awesome host ran to the grocery store and made us some incredible pancakes. It is making me hungry just thinking about how good they were. I also had a little time to get reacquainted with an old friend named Burger Time. I used to play this game all the time on our Intellivision when I was a kid. I was surprised to find out that Emily had the game for her Wii, so I got to spend a little bit of time depressing myself with how rusty I have become at it . . . :)




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:San Diego, CA

Friday, July 30, 2010

One last hike

Today we headed into Sequoia National Park. Having already visited the Mariposa and Grants groves at Yosemite and Kings Canyon we have already seen some big trees, but the Giant Forest at Sequoia contains the largest living thing on Earth, the General Sherman Sequoia, and a density of large trees that neither of the other parks came close to. We found a hike in the Lonely Planet guide which wound for 6 miles on various trails from the General Sherman tree to Moro Rock.



After the obligatory pictures and viewing of Sherman we quickly found our way away from the crowds and into what we found to be the much more enjoyable solitude of the backcountry. The hike took us by many other notable sequoia including the Pillars of Hercules, the Black Arch Tree, and the McKinley tree.



We eventually came to the Crescent Meadows where we were sadly forced to bypass the final mile of our trail due to a controlled burn in the area and took a shuttle bus to Moro Rock.


At Moro Rock we were faced with almost 400 often narrow steps to the top of this granite outcrop, where we were rewarded with beautiful views of the Great Western Divide and the southern Sierras. After a shuttle bus trip back to the car, we wound our way out of the Mountains one last time and headed toward San Diego.

- Posted by Shawn from our iPad

Location:Sequoia NP

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Things that crawl in the night

This evening we returned to the cabin and stumbled across the guest journal. It was filled with sketches and stories (some colorful) from past visitors. Em and Sara wrote a suitable illustrated entry for our stay.



While browsing through the book, one entry we were unfortunate enough to come across talked about a California tarantula letting itself into the cabin through the hole we had already noticed in the screen above the couch Emily was sleeping on. Soon after discovering thus, we then retired for the night. The cabin was too warm to close the windows, so I think we all laid in bed for quite a while thinking about tarantulas crawling about the cabin.

-Posted by Shawn from our iPad

Location:Near Three Rivers, CA

Monkey Identified

At one of the visitor centers we visited today, we were pleased to find an exhibit that provided a rational explanation for the "monkey" we saw yesterday. They have a critter in these parts called a ringtail, that looks like a lemur crossed with a raccoon.




- Posted by Sara from my iPhone

Location:Kings Canyon NP

Winding roads and really big trees

We woke this morning in a not so ominous place, but a cozy cabin nestled into a lovely hillside. Of course to continue our adventure we had to get down that hill and then up and down several others. We got to the main road from our cabin in record time (for some reason it always takes longer going up than down), then we headed towards Kings Canyon. I thought that I would work on this blog on the way, but soon had to stop because the roads again began to twist up into the mountains, slowing us down to 15 miles an hour. Even then I made Shawn stop once because I was feeling nauseous. When we made it to the park, our first stop was Grants Grove which was home to Grants tree, a giant sequoia that has the auspicious position of being the widest if not the largest tree in the world.



After strolling among these beautiful trees, I was feeling better and more or less prepared for what was coming next. Once back in the car we found another narrow winding road that led us to panoramic point. After a short walk we had lunch on a rock with a view of the entire canyon we were about to drive through. People pay a great amount of money for good tables in fancy restaurants, but I wouldn't have traded PB&J on the top of that mountain for any five star eatery.


After lunch we drove through Kings canyon. The canyon was narrower and much more rugged than the valleys of Yosemite, even though they were both cut by glaciers. When we wound down to the bottom, we stopped at beautiful grizzly falls.



Once we wound up out of the canyon again we headed south through the park into Sequoia National Park on the way back to the cabin. This roughly took us through at least 20 switch backs, but was a lovely drive. We were all a little dizzy once we got back to the cabin (via winding cabin road again).


- Posted by Sara from our iPad

Location:Kings Canyon NP

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Road to scary cabin in the middle of serial killer alley (guest blog by EM)

I'm not sure where to start this blog...with the monkey sighting on the side of a mountain in CA or hearing opera reminiscent of Silence of Lambs in the middle of the woods. I guess I should start where all good stories start, at the beginning.

This is day 4 of me joining the Polson road trip across America. We began the day heading to Mariposa Grove in Yosemite. After seeing some big trees including the Tunnel tree, we headed to our next stop in our adventure - our cute cabin near Sequoia National Park - or so we thought (enter scary movie music here).



We make it to the town of Three Rivers and start heading up the mountain to our secluded, out - of - the way cabin. It was still daylight when we started the trek up the mountain, and we observed beautiful sunset views of the mountains. As we continued to climb the ever narrowing "road" up the mountain, the sun continued to set. It was not long before we had no more sunlight to help us find this secluded "paradise." However, before the sun set completely and before I started getting really weirded out by the tiny "road" and potential serial killers, we witnessed an amazing monkey scampering across the road. Actually, we don't really think it was a monkey, but it was not something we had witnessed in any of our travels before. Sara will post a sketch.


"Treacherous Road" in daylight

It was about the time that we saw the monkey that we were losing most of our daylight and we'd been driving up this mountain a good while. All of a sudden we turn a treacherous curve (like most of the curves on this mountain), and we are draped in darkness. Luckily, the cabins are to the left as we enter the tunnel of darkness, but we don't have the lockbox code to get our keys. We try to find the phone that's supposed to be by the gate, but we have no luck getting in the gate on the first try. There are directions to a lodge a few more miles up the treacherous mountain, so we decide to try to find the lodge.

This is about the time I start to get a little crazy. I'm blaming it on being tired and the heat the last few days, but for some reason I started getting really uneasy about this whole adventure. All I could see out of the window was the canyon, and it was just getting darker and darker. Three Rivers Comfort Inn was calling my name!



We head back down the mountain to the cabins and force our way in the gate where we find dark stairs and in the distance a cabin with the one-way phone. We make it to the phone sans flashlight because we're smart like that and have super night vision. While we're trying to figure out what to do, the opera music starts, and I start having visions of Hannibal (aka Anthony Hopkins) eating his latest treat. I'm really about to lose it now, and for those of you who know me (which may not be anyone that reads this blog), I'm quite entertaining when I lose it. Shawn proceeds to call the keeper and gets the voicemail. We go back up the stairs and the phone rings. While Shawn is taking care of the adult responsibilities (getting the lockbox code so we have somewhere to sleep), Sara and I wait out by the road (again because we're smart). I start hearing animal noises across the street, and I'm convinced we're some serial killer's next kill. As Shawn is returning to the car with the vital code, I totally lose it Emily style. For those who don't know me, that entails a quite entertaining dance and some laughing. After my little fit, though, we get all of our things from the car and made it to our amazingly cute cottage.

Now that we're somewhat settled (we still need to make one more trip to the car), it's quite the charming little cottage, and I think we will have an amazing stay here (as long as we get down the mountain in the morning). Yosemite was breathtaking and amazing. I can't wait to see the treasures of Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks.

- Posted by Emily using BlogPress from the iPad

Location:Cabin on Mineral King Road