Road Trip to Wedding Part IX: Among the Giants

From Delano, CA we headed back north toward Visalia and then east toward Sequoia National Park.

The last leg was long and it winded up the mountain.

A vista point along the road.

It was about two and a half hours from Delano to the Giant Forest.

The sequoia trees are massive.

The Sentinel 

The biggest tree in the world - the General Sherman.

The sequoia trees were pretty incredible. The redwoods are taller and pretty thick themselves but the the sequoias are just more massive overall. I'm glad we saw them after the redwoods because they are so much bigger but each has its unique characteristics other than size. The redwood forest seemed more magical, like a fairy tale land. It was dense with sunlight streaming down from above whereas the sequoias were further apart with less trees in between.  It's amazing how they've survived thousands of years.

We left Sequoia and headed back down the mountain. We had about five hours to drive to get to Torrance. We passed lots of orchards and oil rigs heading to Bakersfield. I had no idea how much oil was produced there. The outside temperature was 105 degrees, too. We stopped at a Vietnamese/Korean place for dinner in Bakersfield. I was craving some Korean food!

We made sure we got into the LA metro area after 7 because traffic is usually a nightmare. We got to Torrance around 10:30ish. Roy's sister and brother-in-law live there. His dad and niece flew in from PA a couple days prior and were there as well. The plan was to hang out in Torrance for a couple days and then we'd all leave for our final destination, Las Vegas!

Road Trip to Wedding Part VIII: Smoking Trees in California

We woke up in the brand spanking new Holiday Inn Express in Klamath, CA in the land of Redwoods (they just opened two weeks prior to our arrival). There was a casino next door but they weren't open yet. On this day, we planned to head down Route 101 all the way to San Francisco where we'd crash at our friend's house.

We drove past the the north entrance of the Newton B. Drury Scenic Route not thinking we should have taken it to get a closer look at the Redwoods. We got on it via the south entrance and drove few miles back north to check it out. 

Roy trying to lift 50 times his body weight like a good ant should.

We had over six hours of driving to get to San Fran so we got back on the road. We saw a lot of smoke on the way there.

Wildfires were being attended to. We passed a large base camp for fire fighters, emergency personnel, and equipment. We saw this helicopter transporting fire personnel from mountain to mountain. A person would hang on to the end of the rope. 

California is so dry. We'd drive over bridges that had signs saying, "So-and-So River" but it would just be a dried up river bed or a small trickle of water.

The Golden Gate Bridge ahead! It was weird because we were in 90 some degree heat driving down and as soon as we hit the San Fran metro area the temps dropped and it got really foggy/cloudy.

You have to pre-pay the bridge toll online unless you have some special FastTrak pass. 

We got to our friends Liz and Steve's place around dinner time after we took a detour from the bridge. We got to drive up those major inclines which are no joke. We hung out for a bit at their house and then headed out for dinner at Mission Beach Cafe. We had our first Uber experience and got a ride there. We were amazed how fast you could find a driver.  The food at Mission Beach Cafe was amazing. It was our first time in San Fran and so far it was pretty cool.

After dinner we went to this hipster beer garden joint called Zeitgeist. Roy had lots of beer to try.

Steve and Roy - like peas and carrots.

Me and Liz. Lots of hipsters.

The next day Uber'd it to 21st Amendment Brewery. They make one of Roy's fave IPA's - Back in Black.

Selfie shot!

Then we went to Fisherman's Wharf in a nice Lexus thanks to Uber.

I feel ya, buddy.

Alcatraz.

Got some yummy crepes for dessert.

We said good-bye to Liz and Steve (we'd be seeing them again three days later) and headed toward Sequoia National Park. We had originally planned to hit Yosemite but decided to see the giant sequoias instead. I mistakenly navigated toward Sequoia National Forest instead of the Park so we ended up crashing for the night in Delano, CA. It was about 45 minutes past where we wanted to be which was in Visalia. Not planning ahead has its pros and cons!