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We hit Sequoia National Park and King's Canyon National Park shortly after. Sequoia National Park is really crowded especially in the area where the famous tree (General Sherman) is located. You have to park far away and take a shuttle bus. Big waste of time. King's Canyon is a much more pleasant park with quiet, peaceful groves of sequoias and it is far less crowded. If you can only go to one of these parks, choose King's Canyon.
Pictographs on Hospital Rock in Sequoia National Park.
General Sherman in Sequoia National Park - the largest tree (by volume) in the world.
General Grant in King's Canyon National Park.
These sequoias aren't as big as Sherman and Grant, but they are still impressive. I put a Porsche next to them to get a sense of scale.
Hilton in Fresno. For just this one night, we managed to get a room in a hotel. Most nights we were in a Holiday Inn Express or similar - pretty much wherever we could get a room at the last minute.
And during the day we often found ourselves using facilities like this... but hey, that's the price you pay for spontaneity!
After spending the night in Fresno, we headed for Yosemite. It's a pretty astonishing view as you exit the tunnel and see your first glimpse of the valley...
Yosemite is amazing, but it's really, really crowded. Oh well. Still worth it.
Big rock. Probably famous.
Big waterfall. Probably famous, too.
I bet the whole valley is famous, actually.
It's full of wildlife. We met some.
We wandered around in the woods, and my wife surprised a deer and made it angry. It stamped the ground. She ran away. You can see the deer on the right.
Running away was was probably a smart thing to do.
There were times where we got stuck behind some really slow drivers who wouldn't use turnouts, and other times people were really considerate and let me pass.
I swear I don't tailgate and/or drive like a jerk, but I got the sense that when some people see a Porsche in the rearview mirror they kind of want to get out of the way.
Here's some examples (note the one case where someone used a turnout to make way for a speedy VW Tiguan):
Time for another update... After Mono Lake we drove up to Lake Tahoe. There were a few fun sections of US-395 on the way in both CA and NV. We got a nice room in a hotel in South Lake Tahoe (Marriot Timber Lodge) but I then proceeded to lose a couple hundred bucks in a Nevada casino right across the border so even though Lake Tahoe is gorgeous I was grumpy and didn't shoot any photos...
Next stop was a National Park I've always wanted to visit - it turns out it is now one of my favorites: Lassen Volcanic
I did snap photos there... it's lovely
Lassen is fairly high altitude, so there's still snow even in July
Lassen peak (just like the sign says)
Some areas are a little hazardous.
And there's poisonous gas spewing out of bubbling mudpots - hydrogen sulfide really stinks
There's wildlife here, too.
A friendly park visitor said there was a bear over the ridge - my wife ran over to see if it was true...
And it turned out to be true - this is the first time I've ever seen a brown bear in the wild.
Awesome, awesome thread and updates. Appreciate it. Keep up the good reporting Makes me want to do a similar trip when I'm back on the mainland. Car is looking great!
After Crater Lake, we looped around on RT 62 and RT 230 just for fun (there were some fun sections on those roads), and wound up getting a nice view of Mt. Thielsen
We decided to spend the last night of our trip at a golf resort rather than a hotel and had a fantastic meal (and a good night's sleep) at Sunriver resort.
The reason I mention it is because it's going to show up in the next photo...
I never did find a mobile phone mount that I liked, but we found that my wife's phone (with a cover) kind of sits securely in the cupholder, so here's how we were setup for most of the trip:
Last leg of the trip on the way home through Oregon and Washington on the eastern side of the Cascades... Looked like this:
We made it home in the afternoon, and my dog was very happy to see me. But she was also fascinated by the 4k miles worth of bugs on the front of the car.
07-22-2017, 03:17 AM
Makes me want to do a similar trip when I'm back on the mainland. Car is looking great!
