Wow, what a couple of weeks this has been.

From the Mojave Desert to the wonders of Sequoia and Yosemite, from the Giant Redwoods to the Magnificent Waterfalls and the Mind Bogglingly Fantastic Landscapes.

“Bogglingly!, what the heck does that mean?” “Well, you can’t use it on its own, but it means Amazing or Fabulous”, “Well, why don’t you just say that then” “Now hang on a minute, without Millie to help, we have to use some fancy words to keep their interest” “Shhhh, I can hear someone reading the Blog, get back to it”, “Ok”

 Right, where were we, oh yes, talking about the fantastic stuff we have seen this last couple of weeks.

The Mojave Desert lands were pretty bleak

And it was during this part of the journey as we entered California, that we came across the requirement that as we were pulling a tow car, the maximum speed was 55mph – we didn’t realise that this was a California requirement, until we found that it was common everywhere (up to now)

As you can see from the pictures below, the roads around here were very crowded (ha, ha)

Once again, some of the driving was ‘pretty hairy’, when in an RV pulling a tow car.

Eventually we left the desert country behind us and as we went further west, we started to see miles and miles of Fruit Trees, Nut Trees and Grape Vines.

We had certainly reached the Californian Agricultural Region and turned north again into the Mountains of the Sierra Nevada and the Sequoia National Park, where we were hoping to get our first glimpse of the largest trees on earth – The Giant Sequoia Redwoods.

Well, we were not to be disappointed as the trees we saw were breath-taking in their magnificence (we were going to say ‘Mind Boggling’ again, but thought we had better not!!)

We even managed to get up close and personal to the biggest tree on the planet earth – the ‘General Sherman’, at 1,385 tons, 36.5 feet wide and 275 feet tall, it is the biggest tree in the world in volume!!!

It was staggeringly impressive and it wasn’t alone as it was surrounded by other Giant Sequoia’s all equally impressive.

The drive up to the Redwoods, once again, involved quite a lot of rather hairy driving, fortunately, not with the RV, but we did go from 500 feet at the RV park, to 7000 feet at the Redwood grove, it quite took your breath away, even without the stunning scenery.

One thing we forgot to mention, was that it was our 51^st Wedding Anniversary whilst we were in this neck of the woods, so naturally, we went to one of the many Winery’s in the area and had a few ‘samples’

Then it was the national Holiday weekend, so we kept out of the National Parks as we knew they would be overrun with tourists and went to an RV and Golf Resort from some ‘Rest and Recuperation’ for a couple of days.

Ok, the holiday weekend over, we hitched up and set off for Yosemite, once again driving up some pretty steep and winding roads with loads and loads of traffic leaving the park

and seeing some, absolutely stunning, scenery along the way

Eventually arriving at our RV park, Lemon Cove, near the west gate to Yosemite, from where we intended to set of exploring the National Park the following day.

Even though the holiday weekend was over, the park was still absolutely heaving with visitors, well yes, including us, but the crowds still didn’t stop us from seeing the stunning waterfalls and scenery that this park is world famous for.

,

Look very carefully at the picture below (at 7000ft!!!!) and you will (may) see a huge waterfall in the far distance

From the pictures, it is difficult to envisage the shear size, noise and impressiveness of the waterfalls, there were huge ones every way you turned, with great clouds of water vapour and steam rising many feet into the air.

To give you some idea of the size of these, this one below is 2,425 feet tall!!, or should we say ‘fall’

From there we went to the Merced Grove, where yet more Giant Redwoods ‘grow’ and then we intended to go on to Tuolumne Grove, where the biggest ones in the National Park are, but unfortunately, the road up there was still closed with Snow and this is at the end of May remember!

Still we managed to get a bit of Tree Hugging in!

There were some very interesting old towns in the area as well, which we did a bit of exploring in.

Right, tomorrow we drive the 70/80 miles out of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, down yet more of the twisting and winding roads and up and down very long and steep mountain roads with the RV, to get to the plains of the wine and fruit region of California, then we turn North, for the 1000 mile drive to the Canadian Border.

Once again, we didn’t spend anywhere near long enough in this neck of the woods, to see all the fantastic sights to be seen and it is just a pity, that we are not 20 years younger, to truly explore this countryside as it should be explored.

Is it 5 o’clock yet?