After leaving Yosemite NP, we drove south to Visalia. This would be our base of operations to visit two additional national parks - Kings Canyon and Sequoia NPs. Visalia is in the middle of another agricultural area in California, the San Joaquin valley.
This may be a wonderful place to grow nuts, fruit, and veggies, but they still get the occasional thunderstorm. As we drove on highway 99 we encountered a slow down in traffic. As we moved forward, we came to an area that had recently been hit with sleet and hail. It was about 4 inches high on the highway!
Fortunately, after a mile or so we were back to regular rain - but a lot of it!
The rain in the valley means snow at higher elevations. We were concerned about visiting the NPs because both of them have mountains. Beth called for road conditions and was told that snow chains on tires could be required at any point. Since we didn't have snow chains, we had to purchase some before entering the park.
This is what greeted us at Kings Canyon NP.
Beautiful, yes. But snow storms were predicted so we didn't want to hang around a long time.
These are old growth giant Sequoias, the world's oldest and largest living things.
Matthew's inside a burned out tree.
We saw "General Grant," a tree estimated to be 1,600 years old. 40 feet in diameter.
You can just barely see Bill and Matthew to the left of the base of the tree. This is a huge burn scar.
It started snowing and we high tailed it off the mountain back to the valley. We drove south to Giant Sequoia national park. We were able to turn in Matthew's Junior Ranger workbook as well as seeing some spectacular scenery and wild life.
These were our last NPs in California. Now, on to Las Vegas!
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