America the Beautiful

In the late summer of 2019, Paul and I embarked on a journey to visit family and to see some of America’s beautiful national parks. We started in the Pacific Northwest in Hansville on the Kitsap Peninsula. Chelsea, David, Rufus, Katrina and Michael joined us for the chilly week at the beach and strolling the cute towns and markets in the area. We went for walks, watched the deer graze in the yard, played cornhole, cooked, played games, watched movies and even went to the zoo in Seattle.

Later we flew to San Francisco to pick up an RV Rental, our first ever. The process of picking up the 30 ft. truck was hampered by a broken part, and after stocking up on groceries, we headed out to Little Basin State Park, now a part of Big Basin Redwoods state park. On our first night we were the only RV in the camp, in fact we were the only people in the camp! We enjoyed watching the wild turkeys roaming the property in the evening and again in the morning before we went hiking. Then we got to meet the giant redwoods, the tallest trees on earth. The trees are so magnificent—it’s very difficult to convey their majesty in these small photos. As part of this journey, we also visited Yosemite National Park with its famous giant redwoods and majestic granite rock formations, including El Capitan and Cathedral Dome. Yosemite is also home to one of the tallest waterfalls in the world at 2,200 feet. We even saw an outdoor wedding the day we took the trail to half dome. You can notice the smoke in the air in several of my photos. We were there at the height of the fall CA fires in 2019. In fact, they cut off electricity to our campsite the day we left. We saw lots of burned forest from last year as we drove around CA in a perpetually smoky haze.

From Yosemite, we took a long day’s drive to Mammoth Lake. Unfortunately, when we finally arrived it was freezing, literally. The had already turned off the water to the campsite because of the hard freeze. Our RV had water stored, but our pipes froze as the vehicle had not been winterized. That night, the low temp of 8 degrees kept us up with worry and we left promptly the next day. No hiking in sub-freezing temperatures for these Vagabonds.

That chilly morning we headed to Sequoia national park to see the giant sequoias. What is the difference between the giant sequoias and the giant redwoods. According to the National Park Service, the giant sequoia is the largest tree in the world in volume and has an immense trunk with very slight taper; the redwood is the world's tallest tree and has a slender trunk. The bark of the giant sequoia is bright reddish brown, whereas that of the redwood is a dull chocolate brown. Both trees are amazing sights to behold. In the Sequoia National Park, the southern entrance which we camped near was not able to accommodate our 30 ft. length. Consequently we had to drive to the northern entrance to view General Sherman and General Grant, the two largest trees by volume in the world. Paul was a wonderful driver up and down the curvy mountain roads while I held on white-knuckled and avoiding looking down.

We left the big trees behind and headed for Joshua Tree National Park. Joshua Tree straddles the high desert of Mojave and the Colorado desert. It is famous for it’s twisted, bristly Joshua trees and stark rock formations. We enjoyed watching the climbers while we picnicked one day. The National Park Oasis Center Lodge had a great nature trail.

Finally, we headed back to Arizona and our last stop in Mesa. There, we relaxed in the pool and hot tub at our campsite and visited the petroglyphs and grinding holes in Tyson Wash. We had a nice hike up to the petroglyphs and the grinding holes where native Americans ground corn. Then we headed back to Phoenix to return our rental RV, declaring that the RV life is not for us. One and done, as they say.

We loved traveling to the National Parks and learned a lot about hot to visit. Sadly, as I write this blog, many are closed due to the novel corona virus pandemic. We look forward to restarting our vagabond life in the near future, when the curve levels out.

Hike to the petroglyphs and grinding holes.