Among the giants

WORST. SLEEP. EVER. Or at least of this trip. Not for lack of sleep, but for the slope of a site we had to park the campervan on. I honestly felt like I was going to slide out the window at the end of the bed all night. I kept waking up to push myself back onto my pillow. We normally leave pretty quickly in the morning from a camping, but this morning was all business - I think we were both happy to leave the slanted campground far behind us!

The sun beginning to illuminate the mountains	So many gorgeous views
Viewpoint on one of the TIGHT switchbacks	Deer friend says good morning.

Our early arrival at the trailhead technique proved the best at this above all the other parks we've visited thus far. It's a beautiful sunny day out. It's a SATURDAY. But most of all, it's winter, and most everything in Sequoia National Park, including the large parking lot for the giant General Sherman tree, the central attraction of the park, is CLOSED. There are a handful of spots open at the handicap entrance, and they go FAST.  Our early arrival means we snag one of the high-coveted spots before anyone else has even had breakfast back at home!

Staring up inside the trees

Hiking round the world!

Leaving the General for later, we follow the network of footpaths to the Congress hiking trail, a 5-km loop through the forest of giant trees. In doing so, we also leave 90% of the visitors behind us in the big tree grove, and have the forest all to ourselves. We walk among the giants. I swear, the Sequoia trees look like something man-made. Their bark is too perfect, their trunks too straight, their height too incredible to believe is real. I keep asking Mario if these are mock-ups, made by some artist, or modeled by some Oscar-winning set designer. Even the scorch marks from forest fires look perfectly placed on the trunks.

Completely burnt-out trunk

Sun peeking out from behind giant Sequoias

We follow a curving path among the trees, stopping at the ones deemed important enough to have been bestowed names: the Chief, McKinley, the President, the Senate and the House, both tree groups. We hug them, crawl through their burnt-out interiors, stare up at their branches, lie on the ground to feel their true size. We commune with the trees, and it is AWESOME.

Hello, big tree.	Visiting the named trees : Chief Sequoyah (left)
Standing inside the "Senate" tree group	Mario finds some roots to climb into
Tiniest of creatures hide amongst the biggest of trees

Back at the General Sherman, largest tree by volume in the world, we marvel at its girth, but from behind a fence. We can't get close to the giant Sequoia, and I feel a little sad that all of these other visitors are missing that experience. I am so glad we ventured just that little bit further and followed the Congress trail. 

We try to visit some of the other areas of the park, the Lodgepole Visitor's Center, the Wuksacki lodge, but everything is closed for the season! Apparently, it can get impossible to move up here when it snows, and so most of the areas are closed up in anticipation, even though there is no snow right now! I can only imagine the disappointment of all the people in all the cars we pass by on our way OUT of the park, when they find nothing but General Sherman, and nowhere to park...

Driving down from the park is, of course, a totally different experience from the drive we did in the dark last night. The views coming down from 6,950 ft., into the valley, are absolutely STUNNING, and the sun is in the perfect place to illuminate everything just right - I have a hard time switching between just gawking at the views and trying to capture every second of it on camera. We pause for a moment at the visitor's center, to have some lunch. Sitting at a picnic table in the sun is pure bliss.

You can see the switchbacks below us from here

Driving along the shore of Lake Kaweah

Rows of pecan trees (I think)

Again, after all those narrow, twisting roads through such magnificent scenery, highway driving SUCKS. This time, we manage to change routes to avoid them, taking secondary routes instead, through farm field: more nut trees, olives, and so much CITRUS. The farmlands turn to rolling fields dotted with cows, which then turn to wind farms, then oil derricks pumping up black liquid from the ground. Back to citrus groves again, which this time turn to solar and wind farms, that eventually flatten out, making way for the desert.

Rolling green hills	Oil derricks
Smoke from the L.A. forest fires	Wind farms perched high in the mountains

We drive into the middle of nowhere, watching dune buggies crossing the sand beside the roadway. Eventually, our navigations take us down a washboard road to a ghost town. Before us stands one lonely building, lit up, with a whole cast of characters sitting on its porch. A flatbed truck carries a broken 4x4, its owner drinking away his sorrows with the others. This is Ballarat, population: 1(or maybe 2), and their garage/shop/museum also offers camping spots for $10. We'll see what the rest of the ghost town offers in tomorrow's daylight, but for now, it's the perfect place to stop - it's flat! Now, if that incessant wind would stop long enough to let us sleep tonight, that would be nice.

Basic camping in the ghost town of Ballarat