Southern California Visit – Note 2

You’re probably asking yourself by now, “If they took the scenic route, didn’t they see anything?” Well, first of all, if you know me you should know that “scenic route” doesn’t mean one with lots of scenery. It means a route that takes twice as long as any other route, has nothing but curves, hairpin turns, steep hills, and cars in front of you that are going 25 miles below the speed limit. Oh, and there MIGHT be beautiful scenery but you’re too scared to look at it because there’s nothing, not even a guard rail, between you and the 6,000 foot canyon on this side of the beautiful scenery. Or, you’re so car sick from all the turns that the only thing that you’re interested in seeing is your destination.

Since our scenic route took us into Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks, we did see some magnificent trees, trees that we couldn’t take adequate pictures of even with a wide-angle lens. We tried but the resultant pictures just don’t do the trees justice. We traveled through areas where the snow is still on the ground even though the temperature is above freezing 24hours a day. It’s really impressive where snowplows have piled up 6 or 7 feet high snow banks. They look like could last until the Fourth of July.

But probably the most fun things we saw on our scenic route was a momma black bear with her 3 cubs and a little brown bear eating grass and roots by the side of the road. There weren’t any other cars around when we saw momma black bear about 100 feet in front of us crossing the road like she didn’t have a care in the world. I thought it looked almost comical because she had on a collar like you’d see on a dog. We pulled to a stop on the side of the road about 50 feet from her just as she reached the other side of the road. As we rushed to get our camera, from our side of the road and 50 feet in front of the car out tumbled 3 little black bear cubs. They were hurrying to catch up with momma who, by this time, was ambling off into the forest. Not more than an hour later we came upon three cars stopped in the road. As we pulled to a stop behind them we saw the reason for the stop. A young brown bear was standing on the other side of the road casually eating grass and ignoring the cars or their passengers. Every once in a while he would stand on his hind legs and scrape the soil away from some of the small trees growing on top of the dirt bank there.