An Adventure for 2, Part I: Getting to Cali & Sequoia (UPDATED)

UPDATES: I've added some videos I took and a new link to a second post Toby has on his blog with additional, really great photographs he took and his captions / commentary (❤️) which is really just excellent as well. It's great to get both of our perspectives and highlights of our trip. He has some really great "stitched panos" that are just fabulous! Click on each photo to get the full caption. You can scroll through them as well. I've also linked to some of his pics that were taken about the time that mine were for comparison and context within this post.

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Toby and I had such a great trip! As I mentioned, we planned to see Sequoia National Park / Kings Canyon National Park and then Channel Islands National Park on our first two days in California on our working vacation. And we did! And we had such a great time! I have hundreds of pics but can't possibly post them all. I will post a few here as highlights and I'm dividing my posts up by place we saw / topic to make for smaller posts (relatively speaking). 

We had an early (our flight left at 7:00 a.m. and landed at LAX at 8:15 a.m.) but nice, uneventful trip to California, picked up our rental, and then immediately drove north. It was my first time in California except the brief stop-over en route to Honolulu last December. It was very pretty - much prettier than I expected even. The traffic is horrendous, however. Whatever you've heard about how bad it is - I promise you - it's much, much worse. It defies description. It is terribly dangerous. When people get the urge to switch lanes - which they do as if it's an involuntary twitch - they just do it. Blinkers and looking in blind spots is seen as totally optional and unnecessary. We had three serious near-misses in our first day there. I generally have nerves of steel when it comes to driving, but this was as trying as driving up Pike's Peak. 

Anywho, here are some highlights from the trip from L.A. to Sequoia. Toby's are here and here. 

We are now far enough north that you can see the Sierra Nevadas in the distance. I liked the contrast between the foothills and those more majestic, snow-capped mountains. 

A closer up of what Toby was shooting. Just beautiful. See those dark green citrus trees? There was so much agriculture there, then the sparse foothills, with the mountains in the background. Such a contrast and transition. It was just gorgeous. I was surprised by how much I liked it. The citrus reminded me of growing up just north of The Valley in South Texas. But here, there were olive trees, almond trees, and all kinds of things that we did not grow there. But enough similar that it hearkened to the Texas from whence I came. Toby notes the number of oil rigs. Yes, that was my childhood as well. But we lacked for mountains down there. Or even foothills.  

Once in Sequoia National Park (Kings Canyon is north of it), you are there a while before you get into the trees. But I've learned to enjoy the journey. And, there was much to enjoy here. Like ravens which are some of Toby's favorite birds. And, we stopped at the Visitor's Center.

Kaweah River which ends in a lake outside of the Park. It was just beautiful and there were waterfalls and rapids that were audible even as far from it as we were. 

In fact, here are couple of videos I took to capture the sounds at this point:

Toby capturing it. And, what Toby captured.

The Sierra Nevadas are very different than the Rockies or Appalachians - both of which I have seen - in terms of how they look and the foothills that surround them. I like them a great deal and look forward to spending more time here in the future.

Look at those granite peaks! Look at Toby's stitched pano of this same area! 

Toby capturing it! I do not mind stopping as often as he likes - and sometimes adding to the stops for him when I want his  expert shots. He says I have an eye for things and sometimes I see what I'd like to be in a photograph but haven't the talent or equipment to capture it. Besides, that's his job. I'm merely his assistant. 

Just incredible. Read this. Such a diverse area. 

I'm not sure if this was "Big Baldy" or "Little Baldy" but it was neat and was something that we kept sight of for a long time before being able to stop and get pics of it.

The trees in Sequoia were amazing. Truly, there is no way to capture it the way you experience it. You see a few before you get to the main attractions that are so busy with all the other visitors. As soon as we saw some where we could park, we did so and rushed over.

It's true. I'm short and one might think that any tree might look like this compared to me, but not true! Stand next to a Sequoia. That's a really big, tall tree! Toby took this shot around here. 

I have always liked taking pictures of trees as they look straight over my head. Look how high they are! 

This is among my favorite shots. You can really get a sense of their scale. They are not just tall, they are massive! Toby's a full foot taller than I am. He took this one of me sitting in one of the first trees we saw. 

I took my first vertical panoramic pics. They distort a bit at the top, but I think you can get the idea. Toby got several that showed scale, including this one.  

We were so enamored of these trees...and each other. We love each other and traveling together. We were so grateful the whole time to be able to do this. 

I think he's still working on his processing, but I can't wait to link to all of Toby's pictures. 

Having fun with my love. ❤️

I loved the growth of ferns and other smaller plants that were so verdant juxtaposed against the red dirt and the red bark of the enormous trees.

We drove a ways further and found another grove of them and stopped to take more pics. Another man had the same idea. As he got out of his car, he asked me, "Have you ever been here before?" "No, it's our first time," I replied. Our voices expressed our utter awe at Nature's Majesty here.

Behind the green of the branches, you can see a grove of very large Sequoias Toby was going to take pictures of. 

I stood back and tried to capture the context of it. Look how massive! You can tell that some have been scarred by fire who knows how long ago. But guess what? They are fire resistant! Not only that, their seeds won't sprout unless burned. Talk about adaptation! 

I love this shot - you can see Toby in the shadows and the trees highlighted by the sun.

A slight variation of the other.

We were concerned that they had started a prescribed burn on July 8 (just our luck; there were earthquakes the week before as well; you know we're on the way!), the Monday of the week we were heading out there. The Park Service promised that access to General Sherman would not be affected. Well, that all depends on how you look at it. While the ignition was over, the smoldering and smoke was far from it. It would choke you at times. We chose not to get out in it any more than we had to. Because some parking lots were closed and it's the summer season, there were major parking issues. To get to the General Sherman Tree, you'd have to take a shuttle. The line indicated that that would take up our whole day. No thanks.

Instead, we opted to just keep driving through the parks' main road up to Kings Canyon and just see what we could see along the way and try to outrun the smoke a bit. We were glad we did. We happened upon a little area where there was plenty of parking and some trails to get out in the trees as I had such a desire to do. I wanted to just be in nature, not merely passing it by in the car.

This was the third grove we came across that we stopped to see in more detail - this one being past the burning area and the General Sherman Tree. These were very large trees - sometimes in twos - but were blocked off from foot traffic as they were trying to re-establish vegetation there. A shot Toby got. 

There was a little deer! 

Here is a wider view of the grove of trees.

Toby there so you can get the scale of it. 

A panoramic view - it's never quite as I hope it will be.

A vertical pano with only slight distortion at the top.

This was on the side of the road where we parked. But on the opposite side there was finally an opportunity to walk around a bit in the trees. And maybe even sit for a moment.

Often you will see two or more trees together like this. They are even more massive that way. This one you could sort of step inside. 

Ferns! Look at Toby's shot of the ferns.

Toby right outside one of the trees you could step inside. 

Another angle of it. He took a pic of us in there. And one of me in front of it.

I love lichen as well as ferns. This stop had it all! Toby got a great pic of one of the lichen covered trees.

And the stone here is just incredible as well. 

Even the bathrooms are designed not to take away from the landscape. 

The light was fun here.

I was trying to capture the light as it was coming through the needles of the evergreens compared to the red of the trunks.

The trail I was walking down. It got dark in places, but had beautiful light as well. 

So many lush ferns.

Another vertical pano where you can see the ferns and the top of the tree and light.

I had to wonder how long ago these trees were cut down. Toby notes that not too long ago these things were cut down for cheap lumber. Can you imagine? 

Toby getting some detail shots and providing scale.

He was so happy and busy enjoying himself and his new camera I bought him for Father's Day. He deserves it. I loved that one of his captions wondered what it would be like to set down the camera and just enjoy it given more time. I hope we can do that. 

Him at a distance, but still looking so serene and peaceful.

The last photographic stop we made was here but the light was just not very accommodating by this time. Actually, there was one other stop we made after this but I could not get anything that was worth keeping. The light and smoke was too much.

This was a great spot to get a wide shot of what the mountains are like. Toby got a great shot here.

Snow-capped and smokey Sierra Nevadas.

My beloved. ❤️

After this we had an early dinner and drinks at Grant's Lodge where we had intended to let the sun get lower in the sky and try to see the General Grant Tree. However, we had no cell signal, no Wifi, and were worried that the children would be worried about us. We were also beginning to tire as we'd been up since 4 a.m. and now had at least a four hour drive to our hotel and next adventure. We decided we'd seen enough on what we had called a "scouting trip" - scouting it out for the purpose of another trip where we'd see more, stay longer, and bring the children. We'd accomplished that, but as is often the case, in ways we had not planned. Sometimes the best plan is just to have a general plan and let things play out....but not always. What I failed to do was print out directions home. Without a cell signal, I could not get directions for the hotel in Oxnard, California. Toby had just enough to see the map - sort of. But not in any detail. Very long, windy (wind-y, not windy) story short - we turned a 3.5-4 hour trip into a 5 hr. one by making a wrong turn and enduring a record number hair pin turns.

That said, in the midst of the "crisis" - I looked over and saw the most marvelous sunset. I asked a very stressed Toby to take a pic. He almost refused and once he'd done it, he said it was no good. Wrong! It was beautiful.

I wish now we'd just reconciled ourselves to the fact that it was going to be a late night - a very, very late night - and had stopped a few more times for more pics like that. Live and learn. As is usually the case, looking back, it was not that big of a deal and we survived. We had a great trip to Anacapa and all was well. We caught up on sleep later.

We arrived at our hotel in Oxnard by 2:30 a.m. and had to get up by 6:30 a.m. to get breakfast, check-out, and get to the harbor on time. But it was all worth it as you'll see in the next post.

Thanks for reading!