Mario Andretti & Wallace Stegner

Yesterday we drove the 60 miles or so to Kings Canyon National Park. It's actually the same park as Sequoia, but you know, different. In 1890, Sequoia become the 3rd National Park established, and General Grant National Park followed. General Grant was an area that surrounded the General Grant Grove, which is where we traveled to yesterday. In 1940 it was enlarged to include land to the east, and renamed Kings Canyon National Park. The running of the parks was combined in 1943 to save costs during WWII. And that's the end of today's history lesson. 😉 We headed out of Three Rivers (after coffee, of course), and through Sequoia Nat'l Park to Kings Canyon. 

The General Sherman Tree is the largest tree, by volume, in the world, so it is intensely popular. There are not a lot of people here in general, but they were ALL in the Sherman parking lot. So we drove on by! The best adventures are found in the least likely of places. 

Our next stop was the Lost Cove, where we had the place all to ourselves. 

We also learned how to do a remote picture with our phone and watch. There was a learning curve, and lots of laughter.

To say that the Generals Highway is a curvy road would be a vast understatement. During road trips, I am usually in the passenger seat, in charge of navigation and entertainment. But I get car sick really easily, so at the first sign of a curvy road, I'm the driver. This road went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth the ENTIRE time. At one point I really felt like this is what it would feel like to be a good slalom skier, leaning into each curve. Or maybe a race car driver. My Jeep really loves to show off on a wilderness road.  Who am I to deny that?

In Kings Canyon Park is the Grant Grove of Sequoias.  When you see Sequoias in a row, they have grown out of a dead Sequoia. When a giant falls, a huge space is created in the sky, and seedlings grow along the fallen stump, reaching for that empty space above. There was also a botany lesson at this point about the difference between baby Incense Cedars and baby Sequoias. I feel like they are not called "babies" but there is a decent chance that I can now tell the difference between the two.

First on the loop was a fallen Sequoia. Over time, people (and horses!) have lived in there! We easily were able to walk through. 

Pictures are hard to convey the sheer size of these giants. Their size, their age...it's awesome. The General Grant Tree is so huge at the bottom that it would take 20 people holding hands to encircle it. By volume, it would hold 37 million (MILLION) ping pong balls. 

After a car picnic, of questionable quality, we headed for the Kings Canyon Scenic Byway. On the way I really got my Andretti on. So when I saw the "Road Closed" sign, I didn't slow down, I just veered right onto a new road. We were several miles on this new experience when mom said, "I can't believe you took this road!"  😂 This is what adventures are made of!  And so on to Hume Lake we went! 

At Hume Lake is an adorable village with a Christian camp, several restaurants and lake activities. We found a road that would connect us back to the main highway, and I was game for it.  I flashed by the large yellow WARNING sign, and shouted "I got this!!" when the road turned snowy. Around the next bend, I came to a quick halt as I processed the rest of the sign SNOW WILL GET DEEPER. My travel partner mumbled, "You don't got this."  🤣  And yes, Andretti turned around instead of rolling the dice. 😉

In between Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon is Sequoia National Forest. You feel like you're on top of the world. 

We needed this vacation to just get out, to start to rinse off the fear and stress of the last year.  We are not back country hikers, we do not camp. One of us can't stand dirty hands and is overly picky about the bathroom she might use. But still. We love our National Parks, love discovering the wonders within, soaking up the wild spaces. Finding this quote from Wallace Stegner, atop a beautiful mountain hit all the marks. This is us. 

"We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope.”

#findyourpark

💚