Just Two Nerds

After Tioga Road in Yosemite, Louisa and I headed back to the valley for the rest of the day.  Even though the waterfalls were dry (as they often are in the late summer), the rock walls were impressive to experience.  Staying in the valley is great because of the proximity to a lot of the main attractions of the park.  The downside can be finding parking during the peak hours of the day.

We spent much of the next day at Yosemite in the Mariposa Grove area.  This grove features many giant sequoias, including the Grizzly Giant.  While you can take a shuttle to the upper grove, we found that it was much more fun to hike through the forest.  You really lose your sense of scale after being in these groves. Other trees just don’t seem that big anymore.

We ended our time in Yosemite by visiting Glacier Point.  This point has some great overlooks of Yosemite Valley and Half Dome.  If you’re feeling froggy, you can also take a 10 mile hike to the valley from Glacier Point.  However, we decided to skip that hike for the time-being.

After driving a few hours south, we ended up in Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park.  There are many trails and overlooks in the park, but we chose to check out the General Grant area, the General Sherman area, and Tunnel Log (shown above).  This is another place to check out if you love big trees and forest walks. Our least favorite part of the park was the drive through the Ash Mountain exit at the end of the day.  Not only is the road very long and very winding, but the people driving it do not realize the joys of downshifting.  We ended the day by getting some food at the River View Restaurant at Three Rivers. The food was good, but be prepared to wait a little while for your order.

We spent the next day driving back to the ocean and hitting Dewars Candy Shop in Bakersfield for some ice cream.  We were very satisfied with our ice cream (chocolate peanut butter and banana ice cream hot fudge and marshmallow sundae) and chocolate malt shake.  Dewars Candy shop is a small, old-fashioned soda fountain, complete with stools at the counter.  We were also introduced to the Crazy Chicken in Bakersfield (we decided to go to In ‘n Out Burgers instead of the Crazy Chicken)…

After enjoyng some ice cream (and not stopping at the Crazy Chicken) we continued driving towards the ocean.  We passed a few wineries on the way, mostly near the town of Paso Robles.  We finished the day at a (very) budget Days Inn motel and by having a great dinner at the Manta Rey restraunt in San Simeon.  By very budget, we mean no air conditioning, amongst other things.  However, the Manta Rey restaurant was great.