Post PDC, the first item on the agenda was to pick up the hire car and then head up to Sequoia National Park - no more than 200 miles up the road from LA. Wanting to avoid the hire car fiasco of last time (driving on an Interstate in a car with zero accelleration was not entirely pleasant), I'd phoned up Hertz, and eventually negotiated for an upgrade to the next size up car for a not unreasonable amount of extra cash. The car arrived - and lo, it was huge. A Kia Amanti - a Merc-wannabe, with _everything_ I can think of (electric seats with position memory, auto-dimming rear view mirror, cruise control, etc.), and it definitely had enough space for all our bags in the back. By 1pm, we'd made it to Three Rivers - a gorgeous small town just outside of Sequoia National Park where we'd booked a room for the night
We dropped the luggage and headed for the hills, grabbing a $50 National Park Pass, valid for 1 year, and which granted us entry to almost all the parks we visited over the next week (excellent value). The road wound up and up until we finally saw what all the fuss was about - these big trees are huge! Our oak tree back home (around 300-400 years old) has a trunk about the size of one of the branches on these things, and the footprint of some of these trees is so very huge it's probably bigger than our living room. We walked down to the General Sherman - billed as the largest tree in the world, which I can believe since the trunk is just immense all the way up. It was also billed as being the largest living thing in the world, though I imagine that things like the Great Barrier Reef would have something to say about that. Speaking of living things, we manged to spot a couple of Mule Deer at the side of the road, casually munching on some vegetation, and had a great time watching a few golden mantled ground squirrels pose for cameras. On the car front, the most useful feature during this part of the holiday was the semi-automatic / sequential gearbox mode, where I could pop the car down in 2nd or 3rd and use a bit of engine breaking to control that downhill speed!
Staying in Three Rivers for the nigt was great. We spent a very pleasant evening dining by the riverside in the Riverside Bistro, while the sun sank below the hills, and the tiny bats flew overhead eating the mosquitos and moths. The hotel was a Best Western, and was a very pleasant room.
Next morning, we drove off to Yosemite; arriving too early to check in, we headed for a drive through the park to the visitor centre in the centre of the valley. It was a very long drive - the roads rarely ran straight, and due to the significant amount of wildlife, the speed limit was a steady 35 miles per hour throughout. Lunch was a fast-paced thing at the Yosemite Lodge, where it was a case of ordering stuff from the buffet and watching the guy cooking stuff like burgers in front of you, presenting it on top of a handful (literally) of chips / fries thrown liberally into a basket. Suffice to say that hygeine may not have been all it needed to have been, since James picked up a bit of a bug here that stayed with him for the next few days - still, thanks to some forward planning, the symptoms were easily controllable, if not entirely pleasant.
Bugs aside, we had to slam on the breaks twice on the way back to avoid a couple of coyotes - caught one on the stills camera, and the other on the video camera. Very much hoping that footage comes out ok, since they were really cool to see. Also on the way to check in to our lodge, we came across a couple of mule deer and several more squirrels and chipmunks. The lodge was a fabulous self-catering log cabin in the middle of the woods, one of The Redwoods holiday lodges in Wawona. Ours was a stunning design with a split level interior, fabulous gas cooker and comfy leather sofas. We had a very entertaining evening watching the Emmys while munching on freshly cooked popcorn, having dined on a couple of fabulous steaks. Not sure what they feed the cows over here, but it must be good, since every burger and steak we had while on holiday tasted amazing.
The next day we did a bit of the traditional mid-holiday washing, taking advantage of a warm, strong sun to dry things off as we drove up to Glacier Point, where we were treated to some spectacular views of the valley. Yosemite is a stunning place, with massive granite domes towering above the trees, and a forest full of variety with many different types of pines and decidious trees mixed together. It's easy to see why it's so popular with visitors. It was a shame to have to pack up the next morning, but we were heading to Death Valley, so an interesting change in scenery awaited us.