May 20 - May 27
*** Please note: Some of the images provided in this blog are taken from our cell phone since we don't always have the ability to carry around our equipment outside of planned sessions.
Week 5 on our U.S. Tour finds us traveling North through California. This week was a planned break from photography where we did not accept any clients as a precaution due to scheduling our 2nd round of the COVID vaccine. The good news is we felt overall fine minus a slight grogginess but were able to continue with our office work and editing and still allow us the opportunity to see and explore the area while here. We are now almost fully vaccinated!
With plans to see both San Francisco and Yosemite National Park during this stop, we set up camp in Manteca, CA which is about half way between both destinations. We stayed at another Thousand Trails campground with our membership.
We spent a day visiting San Francisco exploring and seeing the sights such as Fisherman's Wharf, Lombard Street, The Golden Gate Bridge, and checking out some of the local shops and restaurants.
The next day we headed out to visit Yosemite National Park. For anyone planning to visit make sure you look into getting your reservations as they currently limit visitors each day due to COVID-19. Visiting the park from Manteca, we took highway 120. The highway was full of elevation changes and a lot of switchbacks. As we climbed the elevation traveling into the park, we actually started to get snow. Since we had a 3 day window with our pass and another day available, we decided to turn back and come back the next day with better weather expected. We stopped to enjoy the small town of Groveland and had lunch and a drink at the Iron Door Saloon (the oldest saloon in California). The next day we opted for travel and entry into the park using highway 140, from Manteca it was a slightly longer drive but agreed by both of us that it was the better scenic drive as it travels the river into Yosemite Valley (it was also easier on the nerves avoiding high cliffs and switchbacks). Yosemite park is definitely worth the visit and we were able to see Cathedral Falls, El Capitan (with a climbers tent attached about 3/4 of the way up), half dome, and while walking through the valley trails were able to get pretty close to some grazing deer.
After a few days we hit the road again... Welcome to the Pacific North West!!!
We stayed at Elk County RV Resort just on highway 101 outside of Redwoods National and State parks. This park was quite nice with a unique look and is well known for its Roosevelt Elk who frequently roam through the nearby meadow and commonly graze the grass surrounding an old schoolhouse on the property (We didn’t see any elk for the first 2 days). The sites also had a fire pit which was our first opportunity to sit fireside since embarking on this trip. The park also had a little pond which made for nice walks in the evening and housed a pair of otters which were nice to sit and watch.
We headed out for a day trip venturing into prairie creek redwoods state park. Immediately entering the park from the south entrance we were greeted by a large male elk having a morning snack off the side of the road. This park is just beautiful and it’s hard to explain the awe and amazement at the size of the redwood trees. For anyone simply traveling highway 101 along the California Coastline just taking the scenic route through this park is worth the few extra minutes. We opted for one of the small trails and were able to see “Big Tree”. Needless to say, they are all big trees, but “big tree” has its statistics to back up its name. After a short trail walk, we continued through the scenic drive and headed to Trees of Mystery. This was a fun park and worth the reasonable admission fee to see such large redwoods among other unique trees. The park features a trail through the forest with educational and identification signs of the various trees along with a treetop suspension bridge trail climbing high through the trees and also a short sky ride with a lookout point at the top. Inside the shop is also a very nice museum featuring clothing and other article from Native Americans.
As we made it back to our campsite we were finally greeted with a yard full of elk in front of the old school house. The views we were able to see during this day were better in person as an experience than any of these images can show. We would recommend this stop to anyone traveling in Northern California.
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