To The Sequoias Again

(originally posted on my other blog 7-7-07)

Our pictures are now uploaded, so I will share about last Saturday's trip.

We live only about forty-five minutes from some of God's most beautiful mountains. We often go for day trips, and a couple of times a year we stay for three days and two nights. We love our camping trips!

Last Saturday, we had planned to go to one area, but found it closed due to fire danger, so we went all the way up to the Park and visited General Sherman. Before we went there, though, we stopped in an off-the-beaten-path picnic area and enjoyed linner (lunch/dinner). While there, I captured this great shot:

I think it could be an advertisement for Coke! Of course BabyJ doesn't get nearly the Coca-Cola he thinks he needs! It's a fairly rare treat for him.

My Honey played with the original photo in a great *free* photo program called Picasa. It's through Google. We've had a great time playing around with it.

After lunch, we went to the General and then took The Congress Trail, a short jaunt through the forest. We met a "tame" chipmunk who stood at attention, trying to avoid being seen, for several minutes about a foot away from us. Even BabyJ was quiet and studied him closely. Then I found a spider with all her spiderlings on her abdomen. I think she was a wolf spider, but I'm not certain. I'll be submitting the photo to www.whatsthatbug.com ,our favorite insect id-ing site.

Here's the entire family, courtesy of an Eastern European tourist:

It's amazing that almost every tourist you meet speaks English. He noticed My Honey taking a photo of everyone, and simply offered to take a family shot. How nice that he didn't run with the camera . We're standing by a century old slice of sequoia tree.

We left just before dusk, when the animals were getting active! On the way home we saw a lone bear, then a momma bear with two cubs crossing the road, a mule deer, a flock of wild turkeys with babies, a rattlesnake slithering across the road, and several moo-deer (cows). A wonderful day!