Places We’ve Seen

Places We’ve Seen

It’s important to us to get out of our motorhome and out of the campgrounds and see some of the sights in the area. One of the questions we always ask ourselves is, “Why is this place here?” And we don’t leave until we get a satisfactory answer. If it’s a populated area, it’s usually because of transportation or natural resources. If it’s a natural wonder, it’s usually because of geological forces from long ago.

Below are the places we’ve seen most recently. Click here to see all the places we’ve seen since going full-time.


Sequoia National Park - Tulare County CA

RATING: ♦♦♦♦

We took a shuttle from the town of Visalia near our campground up to Sequoia National Park. The drive took a little over two hours, mostly uphill on a narrow, twisty mountain road that sometimes had guardrails and sometimes didn’t. It was a little scary, but the views were spectacular!

As we climbed the mountain to the higher elevations, we started to see the sequoia trees here and there in the forest. They were easy to spot because of their enormous size and cinnamon color. They stood out so much that it looked like we were entering another world. Tolkien’s ents came to mind.

The shuttle bus dropped us off at the Giant Forest Museum, where a big beautiful ent named the Sentinel greeted us. We have a picture of David sitting on a park bench in front of the Sentinel. He is dwarfed by the size of the tree, and this is not the largest sequoia in the park. The largest sequoia is the Sherman Tree.

After exploring the museum, we hopped on a park shuttle destined for the Sherman Tree Trail. The paved trail meandered through a grove of giant sequoia trees to the base of the Sherman Tree, considered the largest living organism on earth.

It is estimated to be about 2,000 years old. That makes it only a middle-age giant sequoia, as some others are believed to be more than 3,220 years old. Nearly all the old trees have fire scars at the base of their trunks, some large enough to stand up in.

While the giant sequoia is not the tallest nor the widest tree on earth, it is the world’s largest in total mass. It grows naturally in only one place, the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. It is often confused with the taller Redwoods that grow primarily along the northern California coast.

We visited other areas of the park, had lunch at the Lodgepole Visitor Center, then took the shuttle back down the mountain to Visalia. We just touched on a tiny bit of this wonderful national park. There was so much more to see, but this was just a quick day trip for us.

Fun facts:  1) The highest point in the contiguous United States, Mount Whitney, is located in the park. 2) Kings Canyon NP and Sequoia NP are administered by the National Park Service together as the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. In 1976 UNESCO designated the areas as Sequoia-Kings Canyon Biosphere Reserve. 3) Though many of the giant trees were cut down in the late 1800s, what saved them from total destruction is that the wood is soft and not very useful as lumber.


Yosemite National Park - Mariposa CA

RATING: ♦♦♦♦♦

It was just a day trip, but wow! Our campground was in the foothills of the Sierras, with Yosemite just up the mountain. I say just up the mountain, but it was a 3 hour bus trip each way. Well worth it!

The bus dropped us off at the Yosemite Visitors’ Center in Yosemite Valley, which is the main place for tourists like us. The valley represents only 1% of the park area, but this is where most visitors arrive and stay.

The valley is 7.5 miles long, 1 mile wide, and 3000-3500 feet deep, surrounded by high granite summits such as well-known Half Dome and El Capitan. The valley is drained by the Merced River that is fed by a multitude of streams and waterfalls, including Yosemite Falls, the highest waterfall in North America.

We picked up some maps at the visitors center, then headed out to hike through nearby Cook’s Meadow. We were blown away by the majesty of the valley walls. Just spectacular! The meadow itself was beautiful, filled with wildflowers and milkweed plants that provide for the monarch butterflies that pass through the area.

We could see the Upper Yosemite Falls from the meadow, and not far away was a path to Lower Yosemite Falls. These are really the same waterfall, separated by a series of four smaller plunges collectively referred to as the Middle Cascades. There is relatively little water trickling over the falls in autumn. The best time to view the falls is, of course, late spring and early summer, but we were thrilled nonetheless.

Because we are old and cannot hike for long distances, we booked a 2-hour guided tram tour to see more of the valley. We love this sort of thing. If you get a good guide, you can learn so much about a place. We had a seasoned park ranger as our guide, and he was the best. Knowledgeable, engaged, and funny.

In addition to pointing out the highlights of what we were seeing, he explained how the valley was formed (glaciers). We learned to spot the difference between Red Cedar and Sequoia trees. We stopped to wade in the Merced River. And he taught us to yodel. The time went by way to fast. It was all so fun.

The most memorable part of the tour was what is known as Tunnel View. This is a large viewpoint area that looks eastward into Yosemite Valley. From this spot, you can see El Capitan, Half Dome, and Bridalveil Falls. I’ve run out of words to describe the awesomeness of this park, especially this view (picture at top of this post). It brought tears to my eyes.

We ended our day back at Yosemite Visitors Center. We watched a video about John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt and the creation of Yosemite National Park. These guys had a vision! Big thanks to them.


Lewis and Clark National Park - Astoria OR

RATING: ♦♦♦♦♦

Lewis and Clark and their team of explorers, called the Corps of Discovery, ended their expedition at the mouth of the Columbia River close to where the town of Astoria is now located. They spent the winter of 1805-1806 in a fort they had built, Fort Clatsop, named for the local Indian tribe. The fort was the last encampment of the Corps of Discovery before they embarked on their return trip back to St. Louis.

Over time, the original fort decayed in the wet climate of the region, but was reconstructed from sketches in the journals of William Clark in 1955 for the fort’s sesquicentennial. This replica lasted for fifty years, but was damaged by fire in 2005, just weeks before the fort’s bicentennial. A new replica was built in 2006.

It was fascinating to visit these areas that were explored by Lewis and Clark. The Corps’ objectives were to study the area’s plants, animals, and geography, as well as establish a U.S. claim to the Pacific Northwest and Oregon territory by documenting an American presence there before other Europeans.

In addition to the fort, we were able to visit the salt works sight in the nearby town of Seaside where some of the team boiled ocean water to make salt for seasoning and preserving their food. Our campground was in Seaside, which is also known as the end of the trail for the explorers.


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Click here to see all the places we’ve seen since going full-time.