A Reputable Journal

The battery alarm started shrieking just after midnight when the batteries failed! They didn’t last long tonight. With our hearts pounding we both took a long time to get back to sleep. But in the morning we awoke, and I started up the generator and moments later we had the camper cozy and warm. Today is our final day of touring. Tonight’s destination is the KOA in Visalia CA a chance to clean everything with a full hookup. No batteries required! Tomorrow is a 5 hour drive to Indio, we are looking forward to arriving there and reconnecting.

We reserved our site for an extra day so we could take our time driving and checking out the sites in Sequoia. The KOA is a pretty short drive once we leave. Again we descended with three main stops in mind. Hanging Rock, Moro Rock, and the General Sherman Sequoia.

Our first stop was Hanging Rock which gave us a great view of Moro Rock!

Moro Rock is pretty accessible its a climb of about 300 stairs to get to the top where you have incredible views of the valley. Unfortunately the air quality tends to be pretty bad, due to smog from the bay area getting sucked in.

We had noticed a lot of helicopter activity, and thought maybe they were doing some rescue training, but one of the other hikers said that it was actually linemen that they were dropping in to do some electrical work! yes, there is a person dangling below that helicopter!

Here is Jane driving the truck through the Tunnel Log!

And finally, the largest tree in the world! 22 stories high and 36 feet in diameter. Pictures really do not do justice to how awe inspiring

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!

Overnight the rain started, a slow uneven splatter on the roof of the camper that made it impossible to get back to sleep. Worry over the flood watch did nothing to help in that department either.

After sitting around the camper for a time Jane decided, and I followed, that we would take the shuttle to the visitor center, visit the Ansel Adams gallery and maybe walk back to the lower falls to see if the rain had any effect on them.

We also stopped at the store. I found a hat, which Jane also likes, and Jane found a nice sweatshirt/fleece. I also found a nice bottle of bourbon. The lady at the checkout thought that the bourbon was the smartest purchase of the day!

With our purchases in hand we headed for the falls only to detour through the cemetery - of all places - which dumped us out into the middle of staff housing. Looking a little lost we found the trail to the falls again and followed it to the viewing area.

You can see the falls in this shot from yesterday, you can also see way up the mountainside.

Today’s view does look like a bit more water falling. But notice how much the clouds are blocking the rest of the view!

Unfortunately the clouds are very low and completely blocking out any view of anything today. So even when the rain slows to a trickle it wouldn’t be worth it as we would not be able to enjoy any views.

Meanwhile we are rationing the battery on the StarLink turning it on and off, bringing it out to the clearing by our camper when the rain slows. We thought about walking over to Curry Village for dinner but most of the seating is outdoors so we will probably just eat in tonight.

In a funny wild kingdom kind of moment, our next door neighbor’s son opened their bear box only to find a mouse perched on his backpack. The mouse was quickly dislodged, but just sat there in front of the bear box without moving. No amount of prodding could get it to go anywhere. A bit later I happened to notice one of the big gray squirrels stalking the mouse. Slowly… slowly… Then all of the sudden it pounced on that little mouse and killed it. It scampered away with dinner. I didn’t know that squirrels were carnivorous!

The lack of sun does nothing to recharge the batteries in the camper so we are conserving there as well, although I know we could plug the camper into the truck in order to slide in and pull up the stabilizers, we would rather not resort to that. We might even be able to steal some power from the bathroom next door in an emergency.

Overall we’ve been pretty lucky with the weather on this trip. This is really our only washout day. We are still holding out hope that the clouds will lift in a while.

It was a short drive to Yosemite village, so we got in just after noon, and set up camp. Rain was in the forecast so we decided to go for a short bike ride. It was nice and we took a quick trip to the lower falls, which were barely falling.

Back at the campground we both thought it was nearly five, so we started happy hour, but it was barely after 3:00. Its 5:00 somewhere! With the likelihood of rain we had taken out the white ragout to warm up on the stove for dinner.

After dinner was some streaming on the iPad.

I didn’t get a great nights sleep as the rain started sometime during the night and the noise of the rain on the roof of the camper made it hard for me to sleep. Especially with the flood watch in the back of my mind and the knowledge that we are not camped very far away from the river.