Epic western trip, part 3

If you recall, our epic western trip's last picture was of a fire in Arizona and we were heading westward into California.  Along the way, we decided to pull off the interstate and stopped along some isolated federal lands along historic Route 66 to wander around the desert a bit...I was looking for an opportunity to photograph some barrel cactus, which we found in limited quantities at this site (above).  After an interesting evening's adventure in Bakersfield, California, where we spent the night, we left early the next morning for a relatively short drive up the Central Valley, which is one of this country's major agricultural areas.  We passed through miles of citrus and olive groves and many other crops.  As you may know, California is in the midst of a major drought, so there were many areas in which the groves had died due to lack of water.  We eventually left the valley, to wind up an extremely steep and twisty mountain highway with some spectacular overlooks (below is an example of one):

Our next destination--Sequoia National Park:

Seeing the sequoias is one thing that should be on everyone's "bucket list"--these trees are hard to describe, and impossible to get a sense of their scale and grandeur from pictures alone:

Below, the kids pose by some "typical" old sequoias:

 

Sequoias grow at relatively high elevations, so the temperatures were pleasant, and it didn't feel as dry and dusty as other parts of California.  The air was pretty hazy from fires in the area, which affected our travel plans over the next few days.  Below, Kenny holds up a pine cone, not from the super massive sequoia, but rather a different western conifer called sugar pine:

 One of the most impressive things about sequoia is their ability to survive.  In the picture below, Hope and Kenny are looking over a large sequoia that was burned more than halfway--and it was still alive!:

Sequoias live in a fire-prone ecosystem, and have numerous adaptations to living in these frequently burned forest.  The huge tree pictured below, the "General Sherman", is the largest known living tree (and, somewhat controversially, the largest known living organism on this planet):

Note the large crowd gathered around the base of this tree--definitely not a wilderness experience!  The kids also greatly enjoyed playing in the cool waters of a small mountain stream right next to where we ate our lunch:

Later that day, we explored a different sequoia grove, which included a large downed sequoia with a hollow burned out that was big enough for us to walk through:

(The grumpy face on the kids is because we had woken them from a nap to trudge to yet another tree).  The tree below is known as the "General Grant", and is particularly photogenic:

I would hazard to guess that the large branch extending towards the camera is bigger in size than the biggest trees many people have ever seen in their lives!  As much as I wanted us to linger longer, we had to press on.  We got to our next hotel after dark and continued our ramble up the center of California, eventually driving into southern Oregon.  As I mentioned earlier, fires in various parts of northern California and southern Oregon were putting out a lot of smoke, make the vistas hazy.  For this reason, we opted not to go to Yosemite National Park, but rather decided to head towards the redwoods a little earlier.  Prior to getting to the redwoods, though, we took a side trip to Oregon Caves National Monument, which held promise of a different kind of adventure.  Bragg Family South is pictured below outside of the cave entrance early in the morning:

I'd like to say we saw some spectacular sights within that cave, but that would not be the truth--we didn't even enter it!  The National Park Service is rightly being very cautious about people entering this cave, as they fear the spread of a fungal disease called "white nose syndrome" that has devastated bat populations across most of eastern North America (http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/disease_information/white-nose_syndrome/).  If you recall, just a few months ago we had visited Mammoth Cave National Park, which is in the affected area and has had this disease detected in the populations there.  So, even though we followed the cleaning protocols of Mammoth Cave, we opted not to go through Oregon Cave's extensive decontamination procedures, and did not take the chance of spreading this disease into this cave.  Rather, we took a nice hike along a ridgeline, and got to see a number of the many interesting native tree species in this area, including the weird-barked Pacific madrone:

and the fruits of the tanoak, which is related to the true oaks and beech trees:

The sugar pine were probably the most spectacular trees along this short trail--the pines in the picture below are probably close to 200 feet tall:

Sugar pines are closely related to the eastern white pines that many of you will be familiar with from the Midwest and Northeastern US.  As big as these pines are, they certainly weren't the tallest trees we'd end up seeing that day!