Arizona & California: Day 13

Today was full of driving. Here you can see my google map of our day. We left Barstow at 9. The McDonalds there that we ate our breakfast at was located in some train dinning cars. The main kitchen and counter was a building but then attached off to the side was three real train cars refinished with booths and a long dinner style table along the opposite side. Quite cool. Our goal was to drive through the Sequoia National Park to get to some of the attractions on the other side. Before entering the park we stopped at Nelda's Diner in Lake Isabella. It was a strange feeling coming out of the desert to this manmade lake. Lots of campers with their motorhomes parked right at the waters edge.

The road inside the park wound up and down on the sides of the mountains. I think our highest elevation for the day was 6,000 ft though most of our driving was at 4,000 ft. Most of these tiny roads dropped hundreds of feet right off the edge of the road, no guard rails. They really reminded us of driving in places like Indonesia. My dad just got back from some places India that were also similar. Below we found a waterfall.

As we kept driving the roads got narrower. At one point we were forced to take a rural road as our next turn was closed. We kept driving and to our great disappointment our road, after about 20 min of driving, was blocked with a gate and closed as well. So we headed back down the way we had come. We stopped at the gate to take a few photos. There was a great overlook there. In a parking lot there I found lots of shotgun shells.

Below, this was the view on our drive back down, on the green side of the mountains. Some of the bushes were in bloom as well as little white and yellow flowers. There were so many meadows and green grassy places under the trees. The mountains and hills were quite steep but covered in lush grass, dotted with trees and bright cream color rocks. Little streams and creeks ran through pastures. It reminded me of some of the places in New Zealand or Scotland. A gorgeous place. If it wasn't for the snow I would live in a place like this. The grass with the sunshine called to be laid in with a good book.

Down from the hills there was mostly flat rocky land and then farmland.