USA Trip: In the land of wonderful wildlife & giant trees

Tonight we send you our latest from an RV park at Fresno in central California. We left the heat of Las Vegas and stopped for lunch at a 1950’s style diner just north of Barstow. This diner was so authentic, right down to the waitress’ attire, the jukebox in the corner and the 50’s music blaring overhead. And the food was good and cheap!

We spent that night at Bakersfield before heading to the Kings Canyon/Sequoia national park, where we stayed the last two nights at the Azalea campground which was absolutely BEAUTIFUL! We had a fire pit which the kids loved, from the collection of firewood through to the roasting of marshmallows. We also had a bear locker. For those of you who are unaware, you are required to place all your food, toiletries and anything else with a scent - good, bad or otherwise (Rebecca wanted to put a few members of the family in by the end of the two days) - in the locker, as items with a scent can attract bears. Needless to say, we placed all such items in the locker except for our refrigerated food. Graham was adamant that no bear would break into a) our campervan and then, b) our fridge. Rebecca had her doubts but we are happy to say we had no issues with ‘breaking & entering’ bears or any other misbehaving animals!

Wildlife was, however, bountiful. A raccoon visited us on the first night on more than one occasion. It was so bold that it walked right up to Graham’s chair and wandered under our campervan. Maybe it had been fed by someone staying at our campsite in the past but we had already been warned how vicious these cute-looking animals could become, so we simply let the critter continue on its way, probably disappointed by our lack of generosity.

The next day, we visited the two biggest living things on earth, two Sequoia trees by the names of General Sherman and General Grant. They are really MASSIVE! They are not the oldest (being a mere 2,200 and 1,700 years old respectively – the oldest being about 3,200 years old) and are not the tallest (Californian redwoods are taller, for instance,) but are the biggest in terms of volume of wood. You are truly a midget next to them, as you will see from the photo below.

We had a surprise when we headed back to the car park after visiting the General Sherman tree, as a black bear was there ripping a big pine cone to pieces for its sap. The bear had no fear of humans at all, which is actually unfortunate for the bear. It is likely that the rangers will euthanize it, as bears which lose their fear of humans often become aggressive and a nuisance. Very sad, but it was great for the kids to see one of these beautiful animals in the wild.

Graham had another surprise waiting for him that afternoon while out gathering more firewood for our pit. He spied a deer with two fawns in the valley below our campsite and snapped several photos of them. We also saw countless squirrels scurrying around our campground which Rhiannon thought were very cute.

So today, we left the national park with wonderful memories of the wildlife we found there and headed back down the mountain (dropping 6,000 ft in half a hour) to arrive in the town of Fresno for the night (and to do some washing, shower and empty the tanks).

We head to Yosemite tomorrow for two nights within the park in the Valley and are very excited about this as EVERYONE says that Yosemite is a ‘must-see’. As in the previous park, we will be out of wi-fi range so will speak again once we head back down.

As always, take care,

Graham, Rebecca, Jack, Liam & Rhiannon