Posted by Karen on 21-Aug-2010
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Pauline and I headed out towards Calavaras Big Trees State Park today, so that she could experience the other type of huge trees we have out here in California. She enjoyed her visit to the Coastal Redwoods this spring, so now we’re going to see the redwoods’ cousins, the Giant Sequoias. While stopped in Jackson for a break, we decided to make a visit to the Kennedy Gold Mine. There is quite a bit to see, the tour is around 2 hours, or longer if you get the tour guide that likes to talk, like we got. There is a museum and gift shop, movies to be watched, furnace buildings, old equipment, tailing wheels, the head frame and the mine office/house to be seen. After our 3 hour tour, we continued on to Big Trees park and enjoyed a nice stroll through the north grove.
Posted by Karen on 25-Jun-2010
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Lori and I went camping at June Lake on the eastern side of the Sierra and enjoyed a nice relaxing weekend. We stayed at the Pine Cliff RV Resort, which is right on the lake, however our campsite wasn’t. We arrived Friday afternoon and then went to Mono Lake’s South Tufa area and spend some time exploring and photographing. I tried to get some nice moon shots, but I really need to practice those types of photos a lot more. Saturday was spent exploring the area, chasing geocaches along the dirt roads and some took us to some wonderful view spots. Sunday brought us back home.
Posted by Karen on 15-May-2010
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After enjoying all the wood carvings and kissing the bear, Pauline and I took a left turn and headed towards the Sinkyone Wilderness State Park and the coast. Sinkyone is one of the most remote state parks I’ve visited; to reach the north entrance of the park you traverse through the mountains of the King Range Conservation area and the last 3.5 miles are a narrow, winding pot-hole-filled dirt road. Pauline was a trooper and didn’t show any nervousness peering down the steep embankments on her side of the SUV, but she did show excitement when she spotted the heard of Roosevelt Elk below us. We arrive at the visitor center and after a nice chat with the park hosts, we enjoy lunch in the barn protected from the ocean breeze. Afterwards, we continued along the coast road and when it ended, we hiked down to Bear Harbor, a tiny black sands beach that’s very pretty. We explored it for awhile, enjoyed talking with some folks that were camping out there and then as we were leaving, Pauline, said get ready to take the picture when I fall into the water while crossing this creek to get back out… I had the camera aimed, but she never fell, handled the log hopping like a pro actually! On the way out, we took the road past Shelter Cove to see the lighthouse and then it was back across the mountain to our campsite.
Posted by Karen on
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This morning, we spent some more time on the Avenue of the Giants and we inspected the One Log House (bigger than my travel trailer with more decoration), stood beneath the Grandfather Tree (way way beneath that tall dude) and mulled the Legend of Bigfoot (I’m not going to tell him he doesn’t exist). And there were lots and lots of chainsaw wood carvings to be admired.
