Windy Road X2

mmm - the smell of Sequoias in the morn! or pines. because you can't actually camp around Sequoias ... they're kind of protected and all.

Did I mention that we came down the windiest road yet (read windy est) ... turns out that you have to come back up it! yep! still insane, even in the light!

Grant Tree - third largest tree by volume. wait ... wtf? there's a Lee tree in the Grant tree reserve? whose idea of a joke is this? might as well have a Cortez tree in the Mayan tree reserve.

Sherman Tree: number 1 by volume! yeah. pretty cool trees. apparently they don't rot, decay, get eaten, or grow fungus. They're too hard and have so many tannins that nothing in the forest wants 'em. They live an easy 3000 years, and then get to take naps on the forest floor for hundreds of years before people with pocket knives finally take then down bit by bit. Resistant to fire, drought, animals, alien attacks, tornadoes, but of course people can find a way around that.

One of the fallen ones was hollowed out before it fell, and was used as a servants' quarters while the park was being explored - then later as a horses stables. yeah. horse stables. inside a tree trunk. think about it. more than just a bunch of trees.

Realizing that we were a few days ahead of schedule ... the vote was made to head to the West Coast! Woot!

a mad drive down a 10 mph recommended hairpin road - where much to everyone's surprise, you did actually have to go the recommended speed - where they had put stone walls up on some parts, but not others, so even that false sense of comfort that comes from knowing that you will probably bounce off of it and stay on the road, is removed - and replaced with the view down a canyon wall and a series of switchbacks that occasionally are marked with a single arrow curved completely around.

And a half hour wait mid-way through to do postcards and have snacks. Apparently they were 'working on the road' to make it 'wider and safer' because it was 'dangerous' ... wouldn't it be simpler to just build a car escalator into the side of the mtn and not allow people to take matters into their own hands and try to drive down it.

regardless.

or guardrail-less.

Sunset on the beaches of San Simeon.

I could stay there. easy. give me a cool million dollars to buy a little cottage a short ways from the shore, and I'd be there at least a year before they repossessed it for not being able to pay takes.

Dinner back at the campground, just a jaunt away from the beach, the surf still so loud that it seemed like it was just outside the tent. really. in a heartbeat. I'm there.

anyway - dinner. 4 pounds of teriaki marinated steak, hand grilled over the fire, green peppers, potatoes, broccoli, cheddar cheese, toast points, guacamole, and cheap wine in preparation for the day of wine tasting on the morrow!

And a family of raccoons tried to sneak out and eat our food while we were eating it. kids - that is why you don't feed animals. they turn rabid, and come looking for easy food, and when they don't get it they go for the jugular, and then you get hospitalized and lose sensation in your toes, and for some reason confuse the letters f and th, saying 'it's your birfday' when singing to friends and family.

beach. good food. beautiful weather. sounds of the ocean. and quarter showers three sites down.

Campground rating: top three overall.