The Sierra Nevada Mountains of California (not Nevada)

We sleep soundly in our empty campground, in our new tent, on our new queen-size, double-high air mattress.  Sounds comfy, and it definitely was - but we discovered our new mattress was just about the same size as our new tent.  Well, at least it did fit!  Might have to do something about that later on - like buy a larger tent!

It's Friday morning, and no matter where we go in this world, Friday morning means time to pay some bills.  (Now if I just knew that Friday morning always meant payday, too, that would be wonderful!)  I set up our wifi hotspot and laptop on the picnic table and start to tap-tap-tap away.  Granpa always fixes me a cup of tea and a sausage-egg-biscuit while I slave away at bill paying.

Next thing we know there's a park ranger standing next to us.  She's a sweetheart, and stays to visit for what seemed like an eternity.  Turns out the restrooms next to us were locked because the plumbing was broken, and she assured us that more campers would be coming in by nightfall.  (Good news, bad news.)  She also told us the shortest route to Sequoia National Park, which would take us in the opposite direction from where our Lil' Miss GPS wanted us to go.  But it's always a fun idea to take a local's suggestion.

So I finish up the bills, and we hop in the car.  Going north we encounter the new town of Kernville which certainly doesn't look like the old town, but the ranger said we shouldn't miss the museum because it has something really special hidden in there.

Around the bend and up we go - and I don't just mean north, I mean up to about 7,500 feet in elevation.  This is known as the Western Divide Highway.  It's two narrow lanes and goes around and around and up and down and switches back on itself incessantly.

 I love it!  There are waterfalls beside the road:

and bald mountains similar to Half Dome in Yosemite National Park

as we transition from small, flowering scrub to the giant towering Sequoia...

These trees were not only enormously tall, (up to 275 feet - that's a 27-story-building-kinda tall !!) but they are also of huge diameter - up to 36 1/2 feet around!  (Finally I look small next to something!)

These guys may have been 36 feet around, but pretty often they were hollow inside.

If you look really, really, really close you can see Granpa standing IN the base of the tree.

Below is the same tree - and I'm standing INSIDE its hollowed out base.  Farmer's wives used to keep their chickens and geese in here at night.  It is absolutely massive!

But we haven't even gotten to the Giants yet!