A Reputable Journal

I would start with Kings Canyon being one of the unsung heroes of our national parks! It is incredible in its beauty and the awesome Sequoias really do inspire awe. But let me back up a bit.

Lets talk about the joys of camping: In the car as we were leaving Yosemite, we were talking about the experience in the rain, and we decided that we were going to give in and buy a little generator. It’s no fun trying to conserve and conserve. Jane already knew there was a Costco right on our way through Fresno so I looked online but Costco didn’t really have anything for us. We stopped at Home Depot because it looked like they should have some, but they didn’t. Our last try was Tractor Supply in Clovis, and they had one 2500 Watt Champion on the shelf. Sold! We also bought a gas can, and $614 later we were on our way and very happy.

No worries about bumping in and getting the stabilizers up when you have a portable generator.

Fresno is at about 1000 feet of elevation, but our campsite is over 6000! We climbed a LOT coming in from the hot foothills. The worrying thing when we got to our site was that our battery had not really charged on the drive here! We are trying a little experiment now to see if using the generator will charge it some.

Once we set up camp we hiked over to Grant’s Grove to see the sequoias! The one named for General Grant is 40 feet wide 268 feet tall and 1700 years old!!

The next morning we awoke, and did our usual morning ritual, only when Jane flushed the toilet we got an alarm signal from the control panel. The batteries were so far drained that they could hardly run the water pump.

The batteries in the camper are over 5 years old. And as Jane was reading in the Rockwood group online we probably got an extra year out of them! But it’s amazing how fast they went downhill. I just can’t imagine we have a short or something that would cause them to drain like that.

So we waited until 7:00 an hour after quiet hours were done and started up the generator. Lights, flushing, even toast!! Yes Jane had toast for breakfast in a place we would not normally get toast without AC power.

After a bit of breakfast and coffee we headed out for the Kings Canyon drive. Its about 40 miles and ends in a roundabout called end of road. Mist Falls was our hiking destination for the morning. A beautiful hike along the river that carved these beautiful V-shaped valleys over millions of years. The hike was 2000 feet blow our campsite but the views as we descended into the valley were amazing. We were even treated to another bear sighting, a mama and one cub.

Our second stop of the day was a quick roadside stop at Roaring Falls

We stopped for a quiet lunch at Cedar Village among the Redwoods, Cedars, and Sequoias. Then we climbed back out to our campground enjoying the views of the Canyon along the way. I think this one really captures the steep V-shaped nature of the canyon!

We had thought about going out for dinner but opted to eat at the campsite and enjoy one last fire and the beautiful night sky!