Sequoia National Park (22nd to 24th of August 2013)

Stop at the Railroad museum in Laws, near Bishop, CA.

On the 22nd we headed south to Bakersfield taking the US 395. Before heading south we actually wanted to see Bodie, a ghost town which became a Historic State Park. Unfortunately we could not go because of another Wildfire. On our way along the historic US 395 we saw a lot of old and "almost falling down" buildings. The majority of them belonged to old mining villages active during the gold rush. The "real" villages we passed by all had a western style, with the typical western buildings.

Western building

We stopped in Bishop and went to the Railroad museum. There was an old train station and a lot of old buildings set up as they were in the 19th century. There also were volunteers explaining things. One of them told us about the whole gold mining process, how people used to collect rock from the mines, how they crushed the rocks and how they finally separated gold from the rest of the rock. We arrived in Bakersfield in the evening and our host Linda had prepared some snacks for and wine us, which we enjoyed along a nice conversation.

The Sentinel

The following day we visited the Sequoia National Park. The giant Sequoia is the largest living tree. They are the trees with the biggest wood volume.

Facing General Sherman

The largest one is the famous General Sherman, always surrounded with a big crowd. Sequoias can get older than 3000 years and they only reproduce by seeds. The cones can stay closed for a lot of years before they open and spread the seeds. One important element for that is fire, which helps open the cones and produces a sterile environment for the seeds to grow. So wildfires are essential for this trees to survive! Like the Redwoods, giant Sequoias have a thick bark, which helps them resist to fire and insects. Both kind of trees are very unique and worth seeing!
After our visit we turned back to our host in Bakersfield.

Stop in Calico, CA

On August 24th, our last day of the NP tour, we visited Calico before driving back to San Diego. Calico was an active mining site in the 19th Century and has been rebuilt as a tourist attraction. It is now an attraction park in western style. It is nice, but almost to touristic and unauthentic! We arrived in SD in the evening. After our NP trip we will spend 10 days in SD before flying to Boston and spend 4 days there before flying back to Switzerland on September 7th.

Sunrise along US 395

We really enjoyed our NP trip and our stay in the USA
in general. We met a lot of new people on our way (mostly through couchsurfing) and met some of our old friends again. Another great experience in the US finished!!