Work and Play

We enjoyed a get-away last week thanks to my husband's job.

He needed to travel about five hours north of where we live to another work site.

Instead of going up by himself and staying in a hotel we decided to go together in the RV.

That way, he had "home" to come to after work, he didn't have to eat at restaurants for every meal, and we were together.  Gas was paid for by his job to get there and back.  And, he saved his company money by not staying in a hotel.  So, it was great all the way around.  

And, we got a little time to relax and explore in a beautiful and peaceful area.

We made reservations and plans the week before. We were lucky to find a place near where he needed to work that had great reviews and space on the nights we needed.  And, it was just a few miles from the southern entrance to Sequoia National Park.  It was in the area of Three Rivers and Kaweah. The place we stayed was called, "Sequoia RV Ranch" and I will be adding rave reviews about this place as well.  It was a few miles off the highway, down a winding road with very few cars.   Our camp site was perfect (#52).  We had full hook-ups and our trailer was parked parallel to the river and under the shade of trees.  There were very few people there the first couple of days and the quiet and peacefulness were wonderful beyond words!  It was even nice when the park filled up over the weekend.  We rarely even heard airplanes.  It was great!

This is the view just outside our door...

We traveled up there on Tuesday, hubby worked on Wednesday and Thursday, 

and we drove up to Sequoia National Park on Friday.  We'd just been to the park last summer

but we went in through the northern entrance that also goes to King's Canyon.  

This time, we visited from the southern entrance.  So, this was all new scenery.

The road was very windy with gorgeous views around every turn.

At one point, I noticed something I'd never seen before and luckily there was a turnout to stop and check it out.  It's a flume!  I'd heard of them but never seen one.  This one is used to divert water to a power station nearby.  I believe it was built in the 1920's.  Here's where the river water runs into it...

And, here's a glimpse of it as it starts to head toward the power station...

 This is Moro Rock.  We climbed on it last summer.  HERE's a post about that trip.

While we were on top of it last summer we saw the winding road below that we drove on this time.  

It turned out to be much more curvy than it looked from up there.  And, Moro Rock looks so much bigger from below than it did when we were on top of it.  It's HUGE!

High season has yet to begin in the park.  So, some of the parking lots

and campgrounds were still closed.  Even the visitor center wasn't very busy.

 We decided to hike to Tokopah Falls.

We had the trail almost all to ourselves.

The trail meandered through the forest and along the Marble Fork of the Kaweah River.

I love the colors in the water. Beautiful!  The water was very cold!

Huge granite walls towered above us...

We enjoyed soaking up the gorgeous views.

That's my hubby!

The weather was perfect for hiking...around 50f degrees.

The sun was warm but it was chilly and cool in the shade.

There were patches of snow left over from the winter and a snow storm earlier in the week.

There were frozen waterfalls on the northern side of that huge granite wall...

Up near the Tokopah Falls, there were lots of small frozen waterfalls and ice icicles.

 As we neared the end of the enclosed canyon, we spotted Tokopah Falls.

It runs down from thousands of feet above.  We could see it cascading down and criss-crossing

from the saddle of the mountain down to the river.  If you look closely, you can see one of the

larger falls near the center of the photo, to the right of that tiny tree..

Here's a closer view...

And, even closer...

We climbed up onto some huge boulders near the falls and took in the views.

Here's a look down the canyon to where we started our hike...

That's one of the few other hikers that we saw that day sitting on the rock at the bottom.

Here's a view from the end of the canyon of that massive

granite rock that had frozen waterfalls on it.

Ahhh...what a beautiful day and a gorgeous place!  

We'd heard there were marmots in the area and we saw some!

This marmot was a few yards away from where we were sitting.

Isn't it cute?!

I whistled and he stood up.

Speaking of critters...there were a lot of beautiful birds in the park and at camp.

Lots of Blue Jays, Robins, bright yellow birds and Wood Peckers.

Lots of Wood Peckers.  And, evidently, they don't just peck holes in trees.

They must think this ranger building is a good thing to peck on too...

There were a lot of beautiful flowers.

Unfortunately, I only had our tiny, easy-to-hike-with camera with us that day.

I can't seem to get it to take good flower photos...the close up kind that I love to take.

So, I learned my lesson...I'm going to start carrying my big camera on hikes again.

I hate missing out on good flower photos!

But, here's what I got with the tiny camera that was decent.

There were two kinds of trees with purplish/pink flowers and they were loaded with blooms.

I only got a good photo of one kind though.

There was a tree near the entrance of the campground that was loaded with white blooms.

It was so pretty and buzzing with big bumble bees (I used my big camera for the next photos)...

Many of the trees are leafing out for Spring.

I like the heart shape of these...

 Tree hug!...

We sat near the river every evening and most of the day on Saturday enjoying 

the peaceful beauty that surrounded us.  Hubby read and I crocheted or knitted.

And, every night, I loved going to sleep to the gentle sounds of the river.  Ahhhh!

I did a little exploring in the nearby farming towns on one of the days that hubby was working.

I even found a great yarn shop!  I'll take some photos of the yarn I bought to put in my next post.

Thanks for stopping by!  :-)

Meadows, Rivers and Falls....Nature Therapy!

On our recent trip to Kings Canyon/Sequoia National Parks, we chose one place or direction to go each day to explore. One of those days was dedicated to driving into the part of Kings Canyon where the Kings River flows. It was the most spectacular and beautiful day of our whole week.

A portion of Kings Canyon National Park is in the section of mountains with Sequoia National Park.  That is where Grant Grove, the Princess Campground that we stayed at, and cooler temperatures can be found during the summer...due to the higher elevation.  There's beautiful forests, giant trees, and meadows.  It's beautiful. 

But, to me, the most amazing and best parts of Kings Canyon are down in the actual canyon where the Kings River flows.  The road winds around, hugging the side of cliffs, thousands of feet above the river.  The further you go, the closer you get to the river and the higher the canyon walls rise above the road.  This canyon is actually one of the deepest canyons in the United States with a maximum depth of 8,200 feet.  That's deeper than the Grand Canyon which is 6,000 feet deep.

The rock walls are incredible!  The trees are beautiful!  And, the river...it is beautiful beyond description.  All we could say as we drove past sections of it was....Wow!  Wow!  Wow!  It was the prettiest river I've ever seen.  Unfortunately, the most beautiful sections were along the road with no turnouts or places to stop and take pictures. The rocks were perfectly situated to create an endless number of small waterfalls as the water flowed and tumbled down the canyon.  It was gorgeous!  The canyon is very narrow for long sections of the drive.  That adds to the magic...a gorgeous river, a winding road, enormous rock walls that echo the sound of the water...and...it was overcast the morning that we drove up which cooled the heat of the sun.  Oh...and to top it off...I brought along an amazingly delicious cup of coffee I'd made back at camp...sort of a vanilla latte with a dash of cinnamon....Yum!

The water flow isn't anywhere near what it would be if we'd had normal amounts of snow and rain.  But it was still strong and treacherous enough to make it very dangerous to enter.  

We saw a lot of warning signs.  

There's something about flowing water that makes me feel sooo good. 

And, just look at all the beautiful colors...

There were waterfalls tucked in little side canyons along the way.  And, there were turnouts and parking lots for bigger ones.  The first waterfall stop we made was at Grizzly Falls.  It was popular and I had to point my camera above the people to get shots of just the waterfall.  Pretty!...

To get an idea of the size of this waterfall...notice my daughter near the right side,

bottom of the photo (you can click on it to enlarge the photo)...

There she is again...in the bottom right corner....

The next waterfall we stopped at was Roaring River Falls.  From the parking lot, there is a paved path through the trees and past sections of a river with tall rock walls on either side.

The path ends at a lookout to the waterfall.  It may seem small but it looked and sounded very powerful in person.  So much so that the pool below it and the river just beyond looked quite dangerous and more signs were posted warning visitors not to enter the water.

The green color of the pool below is pretty.

We sat and soaked in the beauty, the peacefulness and the magic of the falling water.  Ahhhh!

Near where the canyon road ends, there's a parking area, picnic tables, and a 1.5 mile trail around Zumwalt meadow.  It starts out along a river and leads to a bridge...

Over the river and into the woods we went...

The views from the bridge were so pretty!  I love the colors of the water and rocks...

The trail started out rather flat but the south side of it climbed up and over rocks...

It was good exercise and lots of fun!

Once we crossed over the big boulders and rocky sections, the trail entered into a forest on the eastern end of the meadow.  The path became shady and gentle. 

We rarely saw anyone on the trail.  So Pretty and peaceful.

Delicate fern carpeted much of the forest floor...

We saw fungi growing on some of the trees...

And, a happy, healthy squirrel munching on something in a tree overhead...

My eyes just couldn't get enough of this...

Beauty all around!  Here's a glimpse of Zumwalt meadow...

The narrow canyon with high rock walls are oriented in a similar direction to Zion Canyon in Utah...one of my favorite places.  And, they both have a river flowing through.  The colors and scenery are very different but both are incredibly beautiful!

More pretty colors in the water...we even saw some wild trout

swimming around in the shady sections...

Zumwalt Meadow...

Ahhhhh....what an amazing day!  Peaceful and filled with

some of the most gorgeous nature I've ever seen!

It even calmed the hyper me so much that I bought a book at one of the visitor centers, went back to camp and actually read!  I usually can't settle down enough for that.  It's amazing what a little nature time can do!  I even finished the book before the trip was over!  The book was, "Women of the Sierra" by Ann Seagraves.  A fascinating look at the lives of 13 women from the mid 1800's to the turn of the century that had a big impact in the Sierra Nevada Mountain area.  I highly recommend it.  The author has several other books within the same subject that I plan to buy and read...maybe during a future visit to the Sierra.