“On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair…” As we made our way through the California desert toward the National Parks, the words from the first line of The Eagles’ Hotel California kept running through our minds. Granted it was daylight, but the view of the western side of the Mojave Desert looked unforgiving and completely unlike any desert we are used to in the Middle East or Australia. No sand in sight but instead a spectacular barren landscape sweeping into the horizon. From this to the lush green orange tree crops that appeared out of nowhere, we did not run out of scenery to look at. Including the Mojave Wind Farm, the 3rd largest onshore wind energy project in the world and the largest in America.
And anyone who has spoken to Sammy about her excited anticipation of seeing the largest ball of twine in rural Kansas, will appreciate her delight when we found the Big Olive in a town called Lindsay 😂
Heading to Sequoia National Park at the crack of dawn to beat the summer tourist crowds was easily the cleverest move we’d made here by far. Even at 7.50am the cars were beginning to line up at the park entrance. And with good reason too. The park is amazing, in particular Giant Forest which was our destination to see the General Sherman Tree, the largest known living single-stem tree by volume.
The sequoias are enormous and in places it was like walking through some kind of tree wonderland. General Sherman was magnificent and I’m happy to be able to tick seeing him off my bucket list of things to do in America. But not just the sequoias were amazing to see. The scenery around the park itself was pretty impressive as well.
We followed up Sequoia National Park with Yosemite and wow. Just wow. Yosemite is spectacular. Photos do not do El Capitan, a granite monolith towering over Yosemite Valley at over 3500 feet, justice. From Bridalveil Fall to Half Dome, it is not hard to see why Yosemite attracts over 4 million people every year. Consider us impressed Yosemite.
Off to California wine country now and to see our friends Denise and Ron. California National Parks, thank you. S&P