California's San Joaquin Valley is an inhospitable place. Flat, hot, dry, and full of tumbleweeds in its natural state, now its mega farms produce most of the country's tomatoes, grapes, lettuce, carrots, strawberries, almonds, walnuts, and pistachios. Unlike the rest of America's farmland, where farmers and farmhouses are interspersed with the cropland, here in California it seems to be all industrial. Take this tanker carrying molten sulfur. It took me by surprise I must say, when I found out yesterday, I heard it's used to control powdery mildew on grapevines.
Where else but in Fresno could you find 5 different varieties of California raisins?
The strawberries were absolutely fantastic
Right before our visit, the Ferguson fire raged for a month in the Sierras, shutting down Yosemite, and was only fully contained the week before our arrival.
Yosemite Valley is as majestic as its reputation. Because of the fire and the fact that California schools were in session, the park was filled with half the usual visitors, many of them European.
In the Park, we rock scrambled,
hiked
chillaxed
creekstomped
painted
observed wildlife
and one of us even took a call for work
On the other side of the Sierras, the ski resort town of Mammoth Lakes turns into a downhill mountain biking haven in the summer,
but we hit the trails on more old-fashioned transportation
Tessie was so excited for her first ride
Devil's Postpile National Monument is only accessible by bus from Mammoth Lakes. Remember, on the bus please don't force the word OUCH to come out of your hands
The Postpile is a rare formation of rock pillars formed by slowly cooling magma during one of the many random volcanic eruptions in California's recent past.
The top of the Postpile looked just like a stone patio. Note the proper footwear on one child and inappropriate footwear on the other.
After receiving our Junior Ranger patches, a Ranger warned us of a bear approaching the visitor center, and we were one minute from seeing it when the pickup bus arrived and scared it away.
Mono Lake, the great salt lake of California, is beautiful and deathly quiet
Its visitor center was the most entertaining of any on our trip
We found the most expensive gas in the country in Lee Vining
Tuolumne Meadows was picturesque
On the way back through Yosemite we drove through the fire zone. That's a helicopter surveying the area.
Highway 41 was the containment line for much of the east side of the fire
They sprayed a red fire retardant that apparently makes the vegetation sticky and less combustible
On our flight home we could see the fire retardant spread across entire ridges
In one spot the fire jumped the road
and we got out to see the ash and ruin. The ground radiated heat.
I think they'll be modifying this wayside to reflect the recent devastation
Now in Kings Canyon National Park, where there are rivers of pinecones
but you're not supposed to climb the fences
The giant sequoias were probably our favorite sight of the whole trip. Exclusively found on the western slope of the Sierras between elevations of 5,000 and 8,000 feet, they are the largest organisms on Earth in terms of above-ground volume. The groves tend to be in relatively open woodland without poison oak and among oodles of climbable rocks. The perfect playground!
That's the General Grant tree, 107 feet in circumference, 268 feet high, and #2 on the list of largest living things on the planet
That's the General Sherman tree. At 103 feet in circumference and 275 feet in height it takes the crown as the biggest tree in the world
On the way out, after crossing the Central Valley, we took John McPhee's advice: "Of the two most direct routes from Southern to Northern California always choose the San Andreas Fault. If you have adequate time, it beats the hell out of Interstate 5." And so we did for 100 miles on our way to our last hotel, south of Santa Cruz. We chose this location because in this area the fault is not stuck and actually continuously creeps along a few millimeters a year. As a result, there is minimal risk of large earthquakes.
The air in Gilroy does smell of garlic
Good advice
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