So, we moved! With some delay and a great deal of frustration due to moving company nightmares, we now live in Cima! We're still working on unpacking the last boxes and getting a telephone number (we will be free of AT&T apparently and that is some of the best news ever), but we will send out a new address soon. Almost immediately after moving, we set off on our planned vacation...
Darcy took to camping very well. Our first three nights were in a campground just outside Kings Canyon National Park. Darcy enjoyed her giraffe chair and the fact that the bench made a perfect table, built just for her. She's also fond of pancakes, no matter where she eats them.
The campground is on Forest Service land and was heavily logged about a hundred years ago. Sequoias being virtually indestructible, the stumps are still there. We had a few surrounding our campsite and this massive one was part of a short walking trail adjacent to the campground. During the logging frenzy, there was a need for a holding pond, so they built nearby Hume Lake. We spent one afternoon swimming there. Again, because sequoia wood lasts indefinitely, there were a few giant logs still hanging out in the water, a couple big enough that three or four people were log-rolling on them at the same time.
Darcy likes to touch noses. It's part of a song. We indulge her and she thinks it's hilarious. Our other major indulgence on this trip was music. We made a CD of her Very Most Favorite Songs Ever, the most favorite of which was on there twice. We listened to it a lot. It made the longer driving days more bearable for everyone.
Another of Darcy's favorite things are tunnels. Going under a highway overpass? Tunnel. The space underneath a table? Tunnel. A sequoia that's been lying down for over a century? Tunnel tree! Of course, that's what it's called by most people, but Darcy's just started putting two words together, so it's extra fun to hear her say it. She dragged Michael back and forth through this tree many, many times. This is part of Grant's Grove, the cluster of sequoias that includes the General Grant tree, "America's Christmas Tree".
Mornings were cold! The campground was at about 6000 feet above sea level, so the nights really cooled off. Hats and sweaters with cute sheep-buttons were definite necessities. Here, Darcy helps direct our camp tear-down on our last morning at Kings Canyon.
Our vacation interlude involved a long day of driving with a few stops in Yosemite National Park. Do you sense a theme in our destinations? Yosemite Valley was too hot to spend a lot of time, but Tuolumne Meadows are very high and so were a much more pleasant temperature. We stopped for a walk and a little feet-splashing in the stream. It was a beautiful afternoon.
From there, we finished the drive to Mammoth Lakes, with a short driving detour through the June Lake Loop, which was beautiful. We were supposed to camp one night in June Lake so we'd be close to the first-come/first-served campgrounds Michael had his eye on near Devil's Postpile. But, given the very long day of driving, we had canceled that plan and stayed in a hotel for the night, getting showered/bathed and refreshed for the next camping days.
Within a few days, I'll post more pictures from the second and third parts of our trip. Right now, I'm watching three chipmunk-like critters digging little holes in the drainage from our swamp cooler. They're lying as flat as three-dimensional critters can get to cool off their bellies. Or so I assume. It really isn't that hot here; not like Baker. Mornings and evenings are lovely, and the one night we've left the swamp cooler on overnight, it was too cold inside the next morning.
This is campsite number two, a Park Service campground in Devil's Postpile National Monument. The ground is mostly ground-up pumice, which made for very dirty feet for all of us, and very dirty everything for Darcy given her fondness for dirt and rocks. And charcoal, which is what adorns her face in this picture. She was slumped in this chair playing with small pieces of pumice that were mostly under her back. It amused her for at least fifteen minutes, which meant fifteen minutes of the day that she wasn't in full motion.
Along with tunnels, Darcy learned to love bridges on this trip. Both campgrounds had nearby bridges that we made multiple visits to. This one has a special place in Michael's heart. It is the stopping point for one of his favorite views in all of the Sierra. (See below; I wouldn't tease like that.)
The View From the Bridge. Need I say more?
Devil's Postpile is a stunning volcanic feature made up of hundreds (or thousands?) of columns of basalt that formed when lava cooled very slowly. We didn't go up on top, but glacial action long after the columns formed sheared them off to look like a very fancy tile floor. You can see more pictures of the Monument here.
Darcy, of course, enjoyed the Postpile immensely because it's all rocks. Big rocks. In Darcy's world, rocks are either big (or sometimes heavy rather than big) or tiny. If she can hold it in one hand, she will almost always answer "Tiny!" if you ask if her rock is big or small.
