Day 16: Sequoia National Park

The day started at 8 o'clock. Apparently, we needed sleep. We had breakfast at the hotel for the second time, which was included. That doesn't seem to be common in America. Our parents had already told us what to expect, namely waffle batter to bake ourselves and artificial eggs on paper plates. So Uli went for the waffles and I went for the artificial eggs. The coffee was okay and there were even fresh oranges. Well, better than nothing!

Then we went to Sequoia National Park. The park itself was only 10 minutes away from the hotel. However, it took about an hour to drive up to the Giant Trees (sequoias) in the park.

By the way, for the first time we had a grumpy ranger at the entrance of Sequoia NP. After visiting six previous national parks, this lady insisted that Uli write her first name on the national park pass. She handed over a pen and then checked carefully if Uli really knew her name. The ranger at Joshua Tree Park said that the last name should be on the pass and also checked it, but we didn't want to argue and let the lady have her sense of authority. Today was Sunday! You should do something good on Sundays.

Speaking of Sunday, that's why the national park was so crowded. Something didn't feel right when we drove into the park. A feeling of disappointment spread, but we didn't know why. It was lacking the wow factor that we had with the other 6 national parks, sometimes even before entering. It made me realize that we visited six national parks within 14 days, and Monument Valley, Lower Antelope Canyon, and Valley of Fire were not part of the national park pass. We must be crazy! But unfortunately, this also shows that more than half of the vacation is already over - in 1.5 weeks we will be flying back home. Oh man, don't think about it yet! It's not bad at home (on the contrary!), but compared to now, you're just way too controlled by your surroundings. Well, let's get back to today's day.

We visited all kinds of viewpoints and it was always a lovely winding road uphill - for an hour. At a certain point, both of us felt strange in our stomachs and we couldn't imagine where the big sequoia trees were supposed to be. I imagined that you could just walk through a forest and encounter these trees, but it was somehow different - totally touristy! Eventually, we reached the General Sherman Tree parking lot, luckily found a parking space right away, and joined hundreds of people to see this tree. It went downhill on asphalt and I didn't find the flat forest that I imagined. But there was already a forest to see and occasionally huge trees - to get these trees on the lens, we had to tilt the wide-angle lenses diagonally, which you're not supposed to do in photography, but here we had to make an exception. Now the trees look like they are leaning, but you can see their full size in relation to people and cars. Madness (once again!) We spent some time at the General Sherman Tree and its 'little' siblings, and then walked back up the asphalt hill to the parking lot. We drove even higher in a tourist shop and then took the long way back down. Strangely, this road didn't seem so long anymore. We stopped at almost all possible places to enjoy and photograph the panorama. Even here, the photographs do not come close to capturing what we experienced. We had never seen anything like this in Europe. On the way back, we even saw a bear strolling leisurely into the forest.

At the end of the day, we were in a good mood again and were also glad to have seen Sequoia National Park.

Tomorrow we'll make an effort to set off reasonably early. It's about a 4-hour drive to San Francisco, with a short stop at an outlet to fulfill the last wishes of the stay-at-homes and maybe our own small unnecessary ones. But the goal is already tomorrow evening to greet Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco.