Last Hurrah

We stayed four nights in Sacramento.  One of the day we went wine tasting.  We drove for over an hour and ran into traffic.  Roads were being worked on.  Highway 12 is still two lanes most of the way.  The next day we went to old town and the railroad museum.  This is the first exhibit.  The train is still owned by the Stanford Family.

The museum looks a lot like I remember from 20 or 30 years ago.  The best part is there are several volunteers that used to work on the railroads.  They are a wealth of knowledge.

This train has been restored to look as fancy as it did when it was new.  1850's

This is the huge kitchen of a dining car.  Maybe Daddy and Mother ate from a kitchen like this.

There is at least three different table settings from Santa Fe.  This was my favorite.

Looks like baggage got better treatment than at an airport I think.

This is a chandelier from a waiting room.

A clock from Santa Fe.

 

 

We are in Visalia today.  We spent the day in Sequoia and King's Canyon National Park.  I've never seen so many people.  We heard French, German, and Spanish. The weather was delightful.  It was in the 70's.  We got back down to the valley and it was in the 90's.

The trees are huge.

We walked around a meadow to see the giants.

See how small your dad looks.

The meadow is too wet so the trees grow around the edges. 

The roots are taller than your dad.  It fell several years ago.

The big tree shelters the baby trees

It's hard to kill one of these.  The bark is about two feet deep.

New trees grow on fallen trees.

The "footprint" of a sequoia.

Then we walked down to General Sherman.  We went down 212 ft. for about a half a mile.

There it is.  It is the largest tree in the world.

We had to walk back up the trail at 7000 ft.

Up all those steps and ramps.  Luckily there was several benches to sit on to catch my breath.  I got my heart rate up very well.

 

We start home in the morning.  200 miles tomorrow  and then on home Thursday.  See you all soon.  Love, Mom and Dad