Trevor's here! Today no chains were required so we planned to travel up to the higher altitudes through both parks to see the General Sherman giant sequoia. About halfway up, we started seeing snow and shortly after heavy fog. Everything was very eerie.

Walking through a giant dead Sequoia laying on its side.

We couldn't see the tops of any of them!

Trevor in photographer mode!

Looking up at the giants in the fog.

Twins attached at the base.

Mom and son dwarfed by a giant Sequoia.

On the way back down the mountain, Trevor took us on a back road that was barely 1 1/2 lanes wide. We were nervous at first but soon saw some of the prettiest scenery so far. The California poppies have started to bloom!

One more day in the park, time to see some giant sequoias not shrouded in fog! But there was plenty of snow. Very slippery! Good thing we had our hiking poles!

The Keebler elf getting ready to bake. :)

Forest of Giants

Difficult to get a picture of Trevor when he is not in photographer mode!

Unfortunately, this was our last visit with Trevor as we will be leaving California in the next few days. These last two months certainly went by quickly!

On a nice rainy day, we headed out to Sequoia National Park. We set up at an RV site outside of the park for the first night and were greeted by the resident cat who really wanted in. Kismet was not pleased, but her hissing and growling didn't phase him at all!

We were camped at the convergence of 3 rivers in the town of Three Rivers. It continued to rain and shortly after sunset the National Weather Service sent a phone alert for flash flooding right near us. I'm not sure why we are so lucky!

The following day was bright and sunny and we didn't float away during the night.

Kings Canyon National Park is right north of Sequoia, and since Trevor was going to join us for the weekend, we decided to take this lovely curvy road and go up to Kings Canyon. It was slow going but beautiful with roadside waterfalls!

As we drove up the mountain, the temperature kept dropping. Pretty soon we started seeing snow on the sides of the road.

As we entered the park, we were told we could only go in as far as the visitor's center unless we had tire chains. The roads didn't seem too bad at first, but when we came out of the visitor center, it had started to sleet. The roads deteriorated quickly! So we turned around and headed to a lower altitude!

Standing next to our small white rental car. No snow tires!

The entrance to the visitor's center

The next day we stayed in the lower altitudes of Sequoia since chains were still required to go in very far. We planned to rent some when Trevor arrived. It was a beautiful day with some low lying fog, but that didn't stop us from hiking to see some of the waterfalls and the swollen, fast-running rivers.

Mule deer--not at all afraid of us!

We've been in the park two days now without seeing a giant sequoia!

In our quest to see all of the national parks, Pinnacles was up next. Right after we set up camp, we were greeted by some very large coyotes across the road.

The campground is on the east side of the park as are many trails including one that goes through some caves. We didn't mean to go to the caves but made a wrong turn and went through using Denny's camera flash because we hadn't brought a flashlight. We were glad we did this on Friday since the park was crazy busy on the weekend.

Rock hopping through the water

We hiked the less popular trails on Saturday and Sunday to avoid the crowds.

People entering the caves on Saturday. Crazy!

The road less traveled.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Since there is no road connecting the east and west sides of the park, we moved on Monday so that we could see the rest.

But first, the top half of Big Sur! Since it was quite foggy, we decided to drive to the middle and see things on the way back, hoping that the fog would have lifted. It did, but only partially.

McWay Falls in the fog.

Next up Pfeiffer Beach, famous for purple sand and rocky caves along the shore.

It really is purple!

Bixby Creek Bridge in the fog

Pinnacles National Park, west side....

Our path

Denny!

Next stop, Morro Bay State Park near Los Osos, CA. From here, we explored the lower half of the Big Sur coastline, including Elephant Seal Beach and the Hearst Castle.

Fat babies resting in the sun.

These are all weaned babies.

The big one is a male, the medium one a female and all the rest are babies.

Seals don't eat while raising babies. We were told that this male was 5000# when he came ashore and is only about 3500# now. The mothers don't eat until the babies are weaned. Then the males and females leave and the weaned babies have to teach themselves to swim so they can go out in the ocean and start feeding. A few of the babies were in the shallow water practicing.




The Hearst Castle is the second largest family home in the United States after the Biltmore Estate in Asheville. But they proudly pointed out that the Hearst Castle has all of it's original furnishings while the Biltmore is mainly reproductions.

What a view!

A guest house

My favorite room, the library!

It is still a working ranch with 80,000 acres in addition to the castle, several guest houses with gorgeous sea and countryside views, gardens, and indoor and outdoor pools. We have lots more pictures if anyone is interested. 😄

We drove up the coast to Gorda, the approximate midpoint of Big Sur. There we had lunch at the Whale Watcher Cafe. The view was fabulous, but we didn't see any whales. The price for food and gas was outrageous, but there was no other place to eat or gas up for many miles!

The next day we visited Morro Rock after which the park is named. We tried to walk to it since it looked close, but after 5 miles we turned back because it still looked a long way off! On the return walk we passed a rookery. We were having trouble finding any nesting birds until we read the sign. Who knew that Blue Herons nested in giant eucalyptus trees? Not me!

The following day we drove to the rock. It was a good thing we turned back the previous day as we still had a long way to go!
        

The rock is a volcanic plug!

The next day we explored another nearby park, Montana de Oro. We walked alongside the Bluff trail and the scene around each curve seemed more beautiful than the last!  

                                                                        
While there we picked up our 500th lifetime geocache. Woo-hoo!

The state park marina had a lovely little beach cafe where we had yummy burritos with local beer and then climbed to the rocky top of the park to watch the sunset. Great way to spend our last day at this park! Heading out to Pinnacles National Park next.