Yosemite National Park

We left Vallejo California Monday morning and moved on to Yosemite National Park. We're staying at an "Escapee" Park. Escapees is a member organization that actually owns several RV Parks across the country. So we stayed at the local Yosemite Escapee Park, which is just beautiful, quiet and peaceful. We went on an all day tour thru all the key places to see in Yosemite on Wednesday.

There are several waterfalls in the Park...one of them is the 4th largest Fall in North America. We also went to Glacier Point, which is the highest peak in Yosemite. We took lot's of photos and I'll update our Slide-show with our new Yosemite pictures. Towards the end of the day on our trip to Yosemite, we took a break while waiting on the bus. I found a bench and sat down for a snack. I had a Baby Ruth candy bar and drink.

and Wow! The squirrels in the Park are more than just friendly! As soon as I sat down a couple of squirrels ran straight for me and thinking they are sooooooooooo cute, I started talking to them, the way I'd talk to Clyde or Duffy. Guess I shouldn't have done that, because that really got them excited! They acted just like Clyde and Duffy do when we return home and are thrilled to see us. One of the squirrels stood up and looked just like he was begging for food. Before I could do anything, that little squirrel climbed right up my pants leg! Ok, they're cute, but that's a little too close for me. Yikes! Unfortunately, by the time Mark got the camera turned on the little guy wasn't in my lap. I gently stood up...hoping he'd jump down without biting me.

Mark was able to get a few pictures of me feeding the two squirrels. I picked out the peanuts of my candy bar and they must have been hungry...they even got in a fight, right between my legs on one of the peanuts I'd dropped. Anyway, I really enjoyed the encounter...but it reminded me of the time a deer 'nipped' me on the rear and I took off running from him, and he ran after me (well, actually he was running after the food, but I'd forgot I took off...with the deer food still in my hand!) Anyway, we enjoyed our little encounter with the squirrels. It was a nice ending to a wonderful day.

We'll be leaving our current location in Coursegold, California on Monday. We're planning on heading to Malibu, California Monday...it's right next to Simi Valley, CA, where the Reagan Library is. Mark's always wanted to see his library. On the website, there's apparently a lot more to see, compared to many other Presidential Libraries. In addition to being buried there, Airforce One is also on location and you can actually take a tour of the plane as well. So we're excited about that. We'll keep you posted on our wonderings...just click on the slideshow on the upper lefthand corner of the blog, for the latest pictures of Yosemite National Park. Until later~

San Francisco

Sorry for no updates in over a week. Last update we were at Klamath River, California. We did spend another day in the Redwood Forest before leaving, but the pictures were very much like the ones I last posted, so no need to add those here. We enjoyed our week on the river, but were glad to move on where we had cell phone service too.

We decided to continue south and are currently in Vallejo, California, about 40 miles from San Francisco. We got here on Monday but didn't make it out for site-seeing until yesterday. We left early yesterday and headed a couple miles from our RV Park to the Vallejo Ferry, which runs between Vallejo and the San Francisco Port. So we boarded the Ferry for the 1 hour drive across the San Francisco Bay to the San Francisco Port, located in downtown San Francisco, and only a couple of miles from Fishermans Wharf.

We spent the day checking out all the sites. We last went to Fisherman's Wharf 10 years ago when we took the boys there. Things are pretty much the same, maybe a little more built up than it way the last time we were there. We walked the entire Pier from 1 thru 42. We ate at one of the local fish places on the Pier. Checked out the seals, piers and eateries. We also thought we'd walk to Chinatown...(it didn't look that far on a map...)Big Mistake! We walked a couple of miles, Uphill--and I do mean Uphill, it was more steep than any hill or mountain I've ever even thought about tackling!

After a couple of miles walking, we realized there were just too many remaining streets, that were all uphill, so we aborted the thought of Chinatown. So we decided to head back towards the San Francisco Ferry to head back across the Bay, it was getting later into the afternoon. Unfortunately, "I" was the one with the map--so it probably isn't a shock to anyone that we ended up Totally LOST! We ended up at the top of Nob Hill...only to discover there are no streets connecting it to roads leading back to the Pier!

We walked THREE PLUS Miles back, re-tracing our steps back to the Pier. Then another mile and a half from Pier 41 to Pier 1, to catch the Ferry. We walked Two solid hours just to get to the Ferry yesterday afternoon and my feet were literally numb for hours. I didn't get any feeling back in my feet until this morning! But besides our fiasco getting out of San Francisco yesterday afternoon, we did have a great time. (Now, will someone tell Mark to Never, Ever let me hold the map or provide directions in the future! Sheesh...you'd think he'd know better by now huh? He he he).

*Check out the Updated Slideshow...I've updated it with all our San Francisco pictures...there's lot's of pictures. Just double click on the slideshow and it should pull up, so you'll be able to 'click' thru each picture individually, in a 4x6 format. Enjoy! Not sure where we're headed next, but we'll let you know as soon as we've figured it out...until later~

Redwood National Forest

**CHECK OUT THE "SLIDESHOW" IN THE UPPER LEFTHAND CORNER...IT INCLUDES ALL PICTURES FROM TODAY!!

We took off early this morning for the Redwood National Forest, just a few miles down the road from us. Wow, what a treat. I expected to see big trees, but didn't expect how unbelievable the giant forest as a whole would impact me. It's another one of those sites that I just can't seem to find the right words for. Magnificent? Awesome? Spectacular? The trees were "Gi-normous"! We took lot's of pictures and Mark and I look like little 'ants' when standing beneath them.

We went to the Lady Bird Johnson State Park, which was dedicated to her by Nixon in 1968. It's a 2 mile walk thru some of the largest trees in the world. As you can probably tell from some of the pictures, there's a fog that is pretty much constant here...especially in the forest. The forest is so close to the ocean, that's it's also quite cool here year round. The average annual temperatures are 40 - 60...which is why the Redwood's can grow so large. Many of them are 1200 - 1500 years old and at 30 - 40 feet around the trunk. Walking thru the forest in the fog and wet dewiness reminds me of what the Rain Forests must be like. It was actually kind of eery walking thru it. Dead silence with only the sounds of birds. Viewing this forest reminds me of just how small we are in the scheme of life and once again, I'm reminded of the greatness of God. I cannot grasp how anyone can observe something this magnificent and not believe in a God...of some kind.

It was a wonderful hike and we had a great time. We'll be heading out for other recommended hikes and scenic drives tomorrow. In the meantime, here are a few pictures from today:

Settling In and...Black Bears!

We spent the morning settling in and then made a 20 mile trip to the closest grocery, in Crescent CA. The entire trip is on Highway 101, which 'hugs' the coastline and also runs through a portion of the Redwood National Forest and Park. The drive is just awe-inspiring. We've never seen anything like it. The redwood trees were huge...absolutely huge, 100+ feet tall and the trunks huge.

The highway has been carefully carved thru the Redwood Forest to reduce impacts to the forest. There's a section you drive through where the redwoods form a 'steeple' over the road, covering it entirely, and it's breathtakingly beautiful. Once thru the forest, the highway hugs the Pacific ocean the rest of the way. So we really enjoyed the drive into town today. We can't pick up any cell service while in camp, so we made a couple of phone calls while in town, bought our groceries and headed back home.

Then it happened!!! We had just entered the Redwood Forest section of the highway and when we rounded the bend, a Big "Black Bear" walked right out in front of us on the Road!! It was huge! Mark hit's the breaks as the bear walked right onto the highway in front of the truck...the bear never neven looked at us as he strolled into the middle of the road. The bear saw a car approaching from the other side of the road, stopped midway on the road, stood up (he was 6 foot tall) then turned around...dropped down on all fours and trotted right back off the road into the forest, on our side of the road. It was such an awesome experience! We were both speechless at first. I couldn't believe it.

We had been warned about Elk and avoiding them, as well as raccoons getting into trash...but we were unaware that bears were in the area. I guess since it's so near the coast, it just never dawned on me we were in 'bear country', so to speak. That's the closest we've ever been or will probably ever be to a wild bear. And I felt honored to have been in his company, if that makes sense. Of course, the thought of facing that thing in the wild would be terrifying. Afterwards, we drove on and just a couple of blocks up the road were several folks with their cameras taking pictures into the forest, and their cars were no where near them--and to think that bear was just around the corner from them...yikes!

We plan on checking out the sights in the area, including the Redwood Forest in the next few days, but you can bet we'll be cautious about where we go! No pictures yet, we were too busy today but we'll get some pictures of our river location as well as our other 'outings' and post in the coming days. So...stay tuned!