Now today’s goal was to see Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks which are attached by the same entrance road. They are directly east of Fresno by an hour and 15 minutes. Kings Canyon was the first on the list and it is essentially a large canyon formed by mountain ranges. There are many rivers and hikes but we were able to only do a scenic drive, so we could turn around and see Sequoia National Park.
Now there are a few Sequoia trees within this park and the General Grant tree is located here. I believe this is the largest tree by volume in the world or perhaps it is the Sherman tree which is in Sequoia. Now the Kings Canyon was nice and there was a small area to walk around called Cathedral of the Giants. This short trail has a large collection of Sequoias and there are features that include a fallen down tree you can walk through.
At first it was incredible as you can imagine but before we got to Sequoia we didn’t know what to think of how big the trees could get. We ended up driving through Sequoia NP a little ways which took a long time because it’s 30 miles of winding road through tree-lined areas, thus very slow traffic.
What’s unique about this park is these trees only grow on the side of the mountain in this location of the world at this height of the mountain. If you need to think about that this is the only area known to man that these trees exist. By the time we got to the Sequoia Visitors Center is was an hour from Kings Canyon. Our first stop was to get the stamp and passport of course but to talk to a Ranger to get tips on good hikes. They told us to do a hike called the Cathedral of the Giants which is where General Sherman Tree is but extends through and connects multiple routes.
This route featured the largest collection of sequoias int he park. The final view was an over look from the mountain range that connects Kings Canyon. On the other side of it was where we came up from days earlier near Death Valley which was our beginning of the tour of the Sierra Nevada’s. The hike itself featured multiple sequoias (I believe over 1000) and based on the pictures you can see they were absolutely stunning. There was even the famous section where you could drive a car underneath and through a fallen Sequoia. This hike took about three hours and featured valleys and meadows which were formed unknowingly.
This is a very peaceful hike as not many people decide to do the full hike. There are multiple streams through out and different elevation changes with a good amount of wildlife. This is definitely one of the top five hikes of the trip unexpectedly.
As you can imagine three hours of hiking definitely took a toll on the amount of daylight. So we decided just do a scenic drive through the rest of the park checking out more attractions such as the Eight Giants and the Fallen Sequoia which you can drive through. You can see this on the video attached here.
Now after this day we decided to head to Los Angeles as I was driving through the night. We knew this was gonna be a long haul but in order to get back on track I figured it was the best way to go. So after driving through a few wineries at dusk we had about a three hour drive left through the dark to head south on the interstate to Los Angeles.
We weren’t done with the day yet, as we decided to stop at a speakeasy called No Vacancy which turned out to be one of those unique experiences of the trip. This bar was somewhat of a hidden gem even though there was a long line outside. It used to be an old bed and breakfast thus now it’s called no vacancy and requires a long wait to get in the side this exclusive club.
When you walk through you go upstairs and you see a girl sitting on the bed in early 1920s outfit and it almost seems like a prohibition style bar which I believe was the purpose. There was an inside drinking area and outside music area and the cocktails were out of this world! There is no doubt that this was easily one of the best bars in Los Angeles. We were very glad we went to this bar, as we met some people from Tampa and had a great conversation about our roadtrip.
We had to pay 20$ for parking and since we got out so late from the bar, we decided to sleep in the car! This was to avoid a hotel fee and it allowed us to get up right in the city and keep the day going. I will say, however, we definitely felt tired throughout the day but nonetheless we were back on track for the trip and our itinerary. This was a great day. Driving to LA was one of the best evening drives as the views were absolutely sublime. This ends our first full month of the trip and we still had two to go!
June 30 Expenses
9.47 breakfast
23.54 gas
5 fruit stand
4 park sticker
22 lunch sequoia
19.02 gas
1.88 coffee
Total – 84.91