Monday, October 11, 2010

Today is our last day at Yosemite.  We’ll be driving to Redding, CA tomorrow.  We drove back to Yosemite Village and went to the museum, book store, general store, and Ahwahnee Lodge.

The museum had some of the original oil paintings of Yosemite that were painted back in the late 1800’s.  Hutching’s  California Magazine promoted tourism into Yosemite by showing paintings and prints of the valley.  People thought that the prints were an exaggeration and didn’t visit the Yosemite Grant.  It wasn’t until he could print actual photos of the valley that the people started to visit. 

I bought a biography of John Muir.  His name is all over Yosemite NP, and I thought it would be an interesting read.  Maybe when we get to San Francisco, we can visit his home which is a national monument.  Muir Woods is also a national monument and is in the Bay area.

We had lunch at Ahwahnee Lodge.  This is one of the lodges featured in a PBS program about lodges of our national parks.

The top left photo is of Native American weaving a basket at the museum.  The photo on the right is of one of the early painting of the valley.

The above photo is of the dining room at the Ahwahnee Lodge.  This sign is posted at the front of the lodge.  Bears are somewhat of a problem in the park, but we didn’t see any.  There have been close to 100 incidents and 15 bears have been hit by cars.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Today was our second day in Yosemite National Park.  We are staying at a KOA close(?) to the park.  We have a 16 mile drive to the entrance each day.  The road sign say ‘curves next 23 miles’ and they mean it.  In the park and outside the park, the roads are very slow because of the curves and grade.

Yosemite was our first national park.  Actually Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant into law which set aside part of the land that is now the national park. Galen Clark was the first custodian of the park.  Yosemite became a national park in 1890 during Harrison’s presidency.  Two other areas were added to the park in 1906.  John Muir devoted most of his adult life to making Yosemite a national park.  Ansel Adams is also linked with Yosemite because he spent years photographing the park.  There’s a gallery in the park that has many of his original prints; one print that we saw was $3,500.   

Yosemite is similar to Zion in that you are in the valley looking up at most of the major features.  Also, most of the activities are concentrated in one area, the valley. 

First the ‘where we are today’ photo.  The photo on the right is El Capitan, one of the more notable features of Yosemite NP.  Our friends, Mim and Don Baker’s son Lee climbed this mountain, we think.  It took him two days.  He spent one night hanging on the face in a sleeping bag.  What an experience that must have been!

  

John Muir spent years exploring Yosemite and worked to have Yosemite named as a national park.  In the photo above, in the lower right of that photo, is John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt in 1903.  President Roosevelt spent time in the park and added additional land to the park, also in 1903. 

 

Two falls in the park; Lower Yosemite Falls and Bridalveil Falls.

 

On the left, is a similar photo of ‘Half Dome’ that Ansel Adams made famous.  To the right is a giant sequoia named Grizzly that is in Mariposa Grove.

At the top of Glacier Point, this is the view.  Half Dome is one of the other major features on Yosemite NP.  It’s on the left.

There is a telescope at the viewpoint.  We could see 12+ people walking around on the top of Half Dome.  We talked to four young men that were going to climb it tomorrow.  They were going up the back of the mountain.  In season, the NPS puts a cable on the back side to help climbers make the climb.  That climb is for people much younger than us.  Oh well, we can always talk to climbers.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

One day, two national parks: Sequoia and Kings Canyon.  We started by getting into Sequoia NP Visitor Center and picked up our maps and travel guide early.  We knew ahead of time that there was road construction, and we had to get to the construction site on the top-of-the-hour for those heading up the mountain.  For the day, we started at 300 feet above sea level and when we were the highest, we were at 8,000 feet.  The highest elevation in the park is Mount Whitney, 14,494 feet. 

How about some park history?  The first of the two parks was Sequoia National Park  established by President Benjamin Harrison in 1890 which made it the second national park to be established.  What was the first national park?  Two weeks after creating Sequoia, the Congress created General Grant NP.  In 1940, Kings Canyon NP was created when FDR was president and the new park absorbed General Grant NP. 

By the time we got to the top of the mountains, we were in the fog or clouds.  At times, when we were driving, we could hardly see past the front bumper of the car, so we couldn’t see the bigger mountains and the snow because of the visibility.  The temperature at the top was 40 degrees.

You guessed it, here’s the ‘where we are today’ photo.  Next to it is a view from half way up the mountain while we were waiting for the flagger at the road construction site.

The above photo is one of the first Sequoia’s we saw near the Visitor Center.  Next is ‘Tunnel Log.’

You can see how foggy/cloudy it was at the top.  When we had lunch at the top, the views were only nearby.  The visibility was terrible.

This is General Grant.  No, the one on the right is General Grant.  Below is the base of the tree and the top of the tree.  This is the second largest tree in the world.  The biggest tree in the world is General Sherman.  We would have taken pictures of it, but to see it we would have had to have gone down 400 steps.  That’s 400 steps back up - too much for me.  So I will settle for the second largest in the world.  General Grant is 267.4 feet tall and 107.6 feet around.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Today was another travel day- from Las Vegas to Lemon Cove, CA, close to the entrance of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park.  Already I’ve noticed that California is a lot more populated than Iowa. Duh!  There are about ten times more people in California than Iowa.  We’ll have a lot more to talk about about crowds as we travel around the state.  Lots of people don’t recommend traveling to Los Angeles.

The big news of the day is the report on the show last night.  We went to Jersey Boys at the Palazzo!!!  The show was fantastic!  Jersey Boys rock!  I think it was about the best musical show that I have ever seen.  Connie really enjoyed the show too.  If you aren’t familiar with the show it is about the life and music of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons.  I think the songs are presented in the same order that they were written.  This is the music that we grew up with, and it is still popular today.

After the show, we had dinner at one of the many restaurants at the casino.  We ate outside, along the strip.  Probably the best evening of the trip, so far.

Photos later.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Easy day with no pictures taken.  We drove from Zion to Las Vegas.  What a difference.  We arrived by 10:30 local time,we gained an hour. 

Our first stop was at the local Bass Pro Shop; to look for clothing, not fishing tackle.  The local Bass Pro is connected to Silverton Casino.  We signed up for a players card so that we could take advantage of the $5 senior buffet.  What a choice and very good quality!  I guess it will be cold pizza for dinner.

We are staying at the Oasis Las Vegas RV Park again.  It’s a very nice park.  Connie has already made the call.  We are going to see Jersey Boy’s tomorrow night. 

We will be going back over to Hoover Dam to look at the bypass bridge.  The opening will be October 16th, but obviously we will be gone by then.  I checked out the web site and the bridge is ‘on time’ and ‘on budget.’ 

Pictures will return tomorrow.

Sunday, October 2, 2010

Saturday, we made one more trip into Zion for a couple of short trails and to watch the movie on Zion.  We were back home early.  This RV park has cable and we were able to watch some football especially the Iowa vs. Penn State game.  Go Hawks!

Today we visited  Bryce Canyon NP, Red Canyon NF, and Cedar Breaks NM.  It was a busy day.  Bryce Canyon is not nearly as busy as Zion, but still has a shuttle bus available.  One thing we noticed today, more than any other day, was we both thought we were in a different country.  Today we heard a lot of German.  Our national parks sure draw a lot of foreign visitors.

Lots of pictures today and yesterday

Top left is the ‘where we are’ photo for the past three days.  Top right is called the ‘Weeping Rock’.  Above left is just a view from the shuttle stop.  The other is the ‘Court of the Patriarchs,’ three peaks that are called Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  We were told that two Methodist ministers road through the canyon in the early 1900’s and named  many formations.  Maybe we’re lucky they didn’t call them Moe, Curley, and Larry.

    The Zion shuttle system is a great system.

Here are our Sunday photos.  Above right formations are call ‘Grottos.’

 

Bryce Canyon NP are views from the top down, compared to Zion where the views are bottom up.  Beautiful scenery!  

On the way in and out of Bryce Canyon NP, we drove through Red Canyon National Forest.  There are two tunnels and a sign that says that Butch Cassidy spent time here.

  

The above four photos are from Cedar Breaks National Monument created by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933.  Cedar Breaks is over 603,000 acres and its latest attendance figures show that only slightly over 500,000 people visit annually.  The park brochure says that if it were in any other state it would have lots more visits.  Because it’s in Southern Utah it competes against Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Arches, and Canyonlands.

   

Driving back toward Zion, this is our last photo of the area.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Today was forecasted to be very warm, so we decided to beat the heat and get up early and hit the trails.  We drove to the Visitor Center and got on the shuttle bus by 7:30 A.M. 

The shuttle is the only way you can access much of the park.  The NPS started the shuttles in 1999 because they had 5,000 cars in the park on many days and only 400 parking spaces.  There is a shuttle stopping every 8 minutes at every stop in the park.

We took the shuttle to the end of the canyon,the Temple of Sinawava, and took the Riverside Wall, 2.2 miles round trip.  At the end of the trail you can continue up the canyon into the ‘narrows,’ but you would have to walk up the stream, the Virgin River.  Many people walk the river.  We stopped at the end of the walking tail.  Obviously, beautiful views all the way.

Then we took the shuttle to another stop, Big Bend.  Took a few photos and continued to the “Grotto,” got off and took a .5 mile trail to the Zion Lodge.  We decided to do one more hike and thought we were taking an ‘easy’ trail to a place called Lower Emerald Pool.  We made a wrong turn and got onto the ‘moderate’ trail to Middle Emerald Pools.  The ‘moderate’ tail was very steep and much more difficult.  But, we stuck it out and made it to the top.  We did take the easy trail on the way back down.  On the way, we talked to two ladies from Waverly, IA - small world.  That hike was 1.8 miles.

Our total hike for the day was 4.5 miles.  Pretty good for us - a drop in the bucket for most of you.

Zion became a National Monument in 1909 when William Howard Taft was president.  It became a National Park in 1919, Woodrow Wilson was president.  

When we were on the trail this morning, we talked with an older gentleman whose father was a park ranger in the park during the 1920’s.  He said his mother was the first woman to walk through the tunnel on the east side of the park.  The tunnel is over a mile long and was completed in 1929.  It’s an impressive tunnel. 

Have I mentioned that we are pretty lucky that some of our early presidents, especially Theodore Roosevelt, established so many of our parks, monuments, and preserves.  Jimmy Carter added more acres to the national park system than any other president.  Most of his additions were in Alaska.

Enough useless information, now some photos!

The above three photos are on the first trail, the Riverside Walk to the Narrows.

This was the first Visitor Center, circa 1919.

These photos are from the trail to the Emerald Pools.  The photo on the upper right show what it looks like when you make the wrong turn.  If you double-click you can see that there are people walking across a bridge, way down there.