Big Trees, Raisins, and Baseball - Fresno and Sequoia, California

No, my eyes did not deceive me…that was a 9MM Glock semi-automatic pistol strapped to the fireman’s knee. I had to know…”why are you packing?” I asked him.

“Our police can’t go along on every call with us so the city decided to arm us,” he replied.

Welcome to Fresno.

Equal parts gritty and interesting, the city lies in the heart of the produce belt of California’s Central Valley.  It’s located along highway 99, about halfway between Bakersfield and Sacramento.

Two excellent and highly recommended accessible hotels lie in the northeast part of town next door to each other, the Springhill Suites and Homewood Suites. Both offer two-room, accessible suites with roll-in showers available. Each comes with a hot breakfast and, best of all for those beyond 100 degree days in the summer, swimming pools with disability access lifts.

Springhill will cost a bit less than Homewood. We stay at the Springhill.

This is the raisin capitol of the world, it’s also in the very heart of California’s heartland with miles of farms and ranches spreading out in all directions. The office of tourism can provide you with a fruit trail map to visit the different farms, fruit stands, ranches, and farmer’s markets of the area. If you’re here spring through fall, you’ll definitely want to try some fruit picked right off of the branch.

After a good night’s rest, it’s a little over an hour east to our next destination, Sequoia National Park. The scenery beautiful, the rivers frothing with white water, the wildlife flitting about…it’s all spectacular…but what sets this park apart from others are the legendary trees.

Big trees. Huge trees. Trunks the size of houses trees. Living before Jesus trees.

Out of the hundreds of giant trees in the park, one stands alone as the biggest of them all, old General Sherman in his own fenced off plot.

You can park in an upper lot closer to the tree or park a little lower and take a paved, accessible trail up to the grove. We park in the bottom lot.

Sequoia is not new to us. We’ve camped here dozens of times but the trees still amaze. Along the trail is what looks like a downed tree with a nine-foot thick trunk about 50 feet tall. Only it’s not a tree, it’s just a branch that broke off of the General.

The Sherman tree is massive. Just the bark alone is over a foot thick.  The truck is over 20 feet thick. The age is estimated to be between 2,300 and 2,700 years old…and counting. If you could, you’d climb over 275 feet before you reached the top. By volume, it is the largest single trunk tree in the world.

It may be the star of the show, but there are many more specimens in the park that, unlike the General, you can actually go up and touch.  Some, burned out from ancient fires, you can even stand inside of.

It’s lunch in the park, then back down into the valley below.

Just west of downtown is Chukchansi Park, home of the Fresno Grizzlies. They are the AAA affiliate of the current world champions, the Houston Astros. Tonight, we’ll go and see them play the Las Vegas 51s, the farm team of the Toronto Blue Jays.

Before the game, a couple of colorful cars are parked across the street handing out free energy drinks. They’re parked next to the Fire Department headquarters which, of course, entices a few firefighters outside to take advantage of the free drinks.

This is when I notice how Fresno’s firefighters don’t go on calls unarmed.

On to the game itself, we score some accessible seats directly behind home plate. Misters attached to the bottom of the second deck keep things cool in the valley heat. In the outfield, some lucky group is frolicking in the pool in deep center field.

The food is good, the gift shop well stocked, the prices decent, but the beer is limited to a few bland domestics with Tecate being served as the premium brew.  You can see more information on the stadium on our Chukchansi Park Fields of Dreams review.

After a fun evening of baseball, we turn in for the night.

Going south on the 99, we have one more stop to make. As you drive along, sign after sign entices you…best cheese you’ll ever have, ice cold soda, mouthwatering cheeseburgers, fresh fruit, cold milk shakes…by the time you get to the Traver exit, you just about have no free will left and have to stop at Bravo Farms.

A little traveler’s oasis, Bravo’s claim to fame is making cheese. You can watch the cheese makers in action, and then sample the many varieties.

Outside, you can walk over to the fruit stand and sample some delicious donut peaches. Back at the store and café, have a burger followed by that cold milkshake.

Save a little time to go out back, feed the goats, shoot a little pool, and relax in their garden.

It makes for a great little stop to recharge our batteries as we head on south towards home on the 99. 

-Darryl

Copyright 2011 – Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved

CLASSIC TRIP: Yosemite and the Gold Country, California - Part 2

DAY THREE - MARIPOSA

Having been to Yosemite yesterday and not wanting to wade into the crowds, we decided to see what the town of Mariposa had in store for us.

After another giant breakfast, we headed to the state Mining and Mineral Museum located 2 miles south of town at the Mariposa County Fairgrounds. Jon and Lois had provided us with a 2 for 1 admission coupon (also available at the visitor's center at the north end of town) so the price was right.

It's your basic museum but loaded with gems and precious metals. You follow exhibits that explain the history of gold mining in the region. This is the heart of Mother Lode country so a trip here must include some gold mining related activities.

There is a recreated mine shaft to wander down and many displays of the various minerals and gems that are mined in California. There is even a display that explains how you can file a mining claim yourself.

The crowning jewel of the museum is the largest gold nugget found in California. This 13 pound giant is very spectacular. About a foot long and 6 inches high. Just off the top of our head we figured just by weight is must be worth close to $100,000.

Next, we head to the north side of town and went to the Mariposa County History Museum, located right behind the Bank of America. This admission-free museum is full of the history of the region.

Outside is a large display of authentic gold mining equipment used in the region. The original office of the local newspaper is here along with a rebuilt gold ore stamping machine.

Inside are displays of local antiques along with stories of the region's schools, saloons, good guys and bad guys. Of particular interest are many of John Fremont's personal belongings. He, along with Kit Carson, explored much of the region and was instrumental in getting statehood for California.

After the museum we drove up the street to the cemetery to do some exploring. We tried, but by now the heat was just too much so we drove up highway 140 to the Merced River Recreation Area (12 miles north of town) to wade in the cool water.

There is a great little dirt road here that follows the course of the river south for several miles with plenty of great pools for a dip. Many outfitters also provide raft trips down the river here.

After this we head back to the inn for a long, refreshing dip in the pool. As beautiful as this region is, it really gets hot.

Jon and Lois invited us up for a barbecue that evening and we had some delicious barbecued chicken tacos with a French flavor. Jon, ever the Frenchman, pulled out some delicious wine to top it off.

After dinner, we head back over to the fairgrounds for the local 4th of July celebration. After much singing by a local group...too much singing judging by the reactions of those around us...the fireworks began. It was a great show and after fighting a great traffic jam to get out, we went back to the inn.

DAY FOUR - GIANT SEQUOIAS

Our last morning at the Restful Nest. Breakfast again was a huge affair with an egg casserole, a variety of breakfast meats, fruit, muffins, and the ever-present brioches. It was sad to leave but leave we must and we proceeded to head south down highway 41 through a Gold Country scenic drive.

For the first time on our trip we actually got hungry for lunch about the time we hit Fresno. Not wanting to make the same mistake again, this time we remembered about the new In-n-Out on the south end of town.

After a delicious double-double and a shake, we continued on to this day's destination.

Most people are under the assumption that giant sequoia trees can only be found in national parks such as Yosemite and Sequoia. Well, they're wrong!

There is a little known and out of the way area south of Sequoia National Park that has many groves of these giants. True, it is out of the way (the loop we made will take you about 4 hours out of the way) and most of the groves are hidden in the forest up old dirt logging roads. However, that being said there are some spectacular trees right along the main highway.

To get there, we headed south on Highway 99 to Highway 140 leading to Porterville. Then we headed east on 140 into the Sequoia National Forest. This is a really windy road that finally straightens out 44 miles up into the mountains at Quaking Aspen. Here, we continued on to mile marker 13 to the Trail of 100 Giants.

There is a picnic area and a campground across the street from the trailhead next to the beautiful Long Meadow. The trail itself is an easy 1/2 mile loop through a spectacular grove of giant trees. These trees are not fenced in and you can get right up to them and touch 'em. You can even walk through some of them. If you've never seen a sequoia up close, just check out this picture to see just how big they can get.

After the trail, we did a little bird watching in Long Meadow, just off of the parking area. The meadow was filled with wild flowers and Letty cataloged 4 different species of birds in the meadow.

Next, we continued down the highway through the Kern River canyon. Just before the Kern, we pulled over to view the large South River Falls. The hillsides really dried up when we hit the Kern River although the river itself was very full and roiling with whitewater.

There were a lot of rafting guides leading groups through the river. We pulled over to watch some of the boats come around a bend in the river to get some photos for this report. If you look carefully at the picture below, you can see the result of a particularly nasty bump in the river. At the front of the boat you can see a woman holding on for dear life after she was thrown overboard in the rapids.

This was a truly scary moment as the guide let the raft go on uncontrolled while the woman held onto the guide's paddle. Luckily the raft drifted into some calm water and the overboard passenger was pulled to safety. Below is another picture of the whitewater activity at this point.

We continued on down the canyon to the nice little town of Kernville where the river empties into Lake Isabella. We had hoped to stay in the area this evening but everything was booked. We decided to spend some time here anyway, wading in the cool, refreshing water of the river and then having dinner before leaving.

From the numerous restaurants and snack bars around the town's Circle Park, we picked That's Italian. We were very glad we did.

That's Italian would be right at home with the better Italian restaurants of San Francisco or L.A. Dinner started off with a great, fresh green salad topped off with their delicious home-made Italian dressing...very creamy! Letty had the Linguini with shrimp and I had their cannelloni stuffed with ham, chicken, spinach, and cheese. The linguini came with an alfredo-like white sauce and the cannelloni had a tomato cream sauce. Absolutely delicious!

The meal was accompanied by basketfuls of fresh bread and butter. The whole thing was topped off with some of the best desserts we've ever had. Letty had a piece of their chocolate cake and I had a napoleon that was very, very flaky with custard and cream. All this was eaten on their outdoor porch dining area with great views of the town and fresh breeze.

With that great dinner under our belt, we continued on down highway 138 which winds its way down the Kern River to Bakersfield. At this point it was 8:30pm and we were not really wanting to spend the night in Bakersfield so we just continued on the 2 hour drive back home.

-Darryl
Copyright 1997 – Darryl Musick

CLASSIC TRIP - Kernville, California

Not many Sierra towns can claim historic status after only 40-odd years, but Kernville can. That's because the town...in it's entirety...was relocated to its present site when the old town was inundated by the waters of adjacent Lake Isabella.

Most people come here to drop their boat or jetski in the lake, to run the mighty Kern River, or to catch that tasty Rainbow Trout lurking in the cool waters of the Kern.

Look closely and you can see the person that went overboard clinging to the side

Don't get me wrong, we like all that too, but this trip we came to see what's OFF the beaten path in Kernville.

Kerville occupies a little niche at the extreme southern end of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, separated from the nearby Tehachapi mountains, the desert, and the Central Valley by Lake Isabella. To get there from L.A., you need to either go through Bakersfield or Mojave to get there. Either route will take about 3 hours.

From L.A., take I-5 to CA 99 to CA 178 (in Bakersfield). Go east on CA 178 to Lake Isabella. Or take I-5 to CA 14 to CA 178 and go west on CA 178 to Lake Isabella. We prefer the CA 14 route. Kernville lies at the north end of the lake.

Accomodations range from budget motels to bed & breakfasts. Many of the smaller motels in town are true classics of roadside Americana with the tidy little gardens and pine-knot paneling in the rooms. Wherever you stay, the Kern River or the lake will be close at hand.

We start off our little adventure (this is an overnight excursion from L.A.) by wandering through the riverfront park in town. Our feet are hot and tired. Taking off our shoes, we dip our feet in the very refreshing water of the river. Many others are splashing in the water and a few are jumping into inflatable boats for a homemade rafting trip down to Lake Isabella.

A Conestoga Wagon catches our eye in the corner of the park. We head over to see what's up. A local actor's group is putting on a play about pioneers interspersed with some songs. We watch for awhile, but our interest doesn't keep up and we're soon looking for something else to do.

We decide to head upriver and see some sequoias. Heading up Sierra Way, we drive up the Kern River Canyon. The canyon is hot and dry for the most part. The river makes for some quick cool down spots along the way. Many rafters are in the water today. This looks like fun.

At the top of the canyon, there's a turn up to the mountains. We pass the former logging town of Johnsondale (now a time share campground called R Ranch) and it's a quick, steep climb up to the crest of the Sierras.

Once up there, it's not a long drive to get to Long Meadow, home of the giants.

We park in the Long Meadow picnic area lot. After a picnic lunch, it's across the street to the fabulous Trail of 100 Giants. This 1 mile trail winds through an ancient grove of giant sequoias. Many of these trees have holes that have burned into them from years of forest fires that allow you to actually walk into the tree.

It's cool and shady here. A couple of creeks meander through the grove and a carpet of ferns covers the ground. I don't know what the actual count is but 100 is not a stretch for this grove of big trees.

After our hike through the trees, we head back down to Kernville. By now, it's dinner time. Kernville has many places, much along the lines of burger or barbecue joints but we come here for one very special restaurant, That's Italian.

Here, in this little out of the way river town, is one of the best Italian restaurants ever. Forget the corny name, the food here is extraordinary. We had the canneloni perfectly prepared with a cream sauce, the lasagna, bow-tie pasta with shrimp, and desserts that just can't be passed up like white chocolate rasberry cheesecake, an incredibly flaky napoleon, and more. Ever see the movie "Big Night"? That's the kind of Italian dishes they serve here. Call (760) 376-6020 for reservations.

After a splendid dinner on the balcony overlooking the town square, we take a little walk around the postage stamp sized downtown. There's a few shops here but not much that really peaked our interest.

We head back to our motel and turn in for the night. The next day we check out, have breakfast, and head over to the dam that holds back Lake Isabella. Here are a few remnants of a ghost town and many mine shafts to explore (tread carefully here, many mine claims are still worked and protected as such).

Nearby, you can see some of the wildest whitewater around where the Kern River exits the dam for it's journey on down to Bakersfield. Many outfitters here can put you in the water starting at less than $20. We checked with a few and decided we'll do the rafting on a future trip.

The last thing we want to do on our trip is to have a nice picnic before heading home. We pack up a lunch from the Vons in Lake Isabella and head south through the old mining town of Bodfish. Beyond this is a beautiful stretch of country called the Lorraine loop, because of it's resemblance of the Alsace-Lorraine region of France, that begs you to pull off and enjoy the scenery.

The only sign of civilization here, besides a few houses, is the general store located in the old school house. There is a particularly scenic spot to have a picnic next door.

After a little snooze on the blanket laying in the warm sun, we continue through the loop until we reach the village of Agua Caliente, so named because of some nearby hot springs. We jump back on Highway 58 which heads over to Tehachapi, Mojave, and home.

One last sight to see is the famous Tehachapi Loop, an engineering feat enabling the trains to climb this steep pass by looping over themselves.

Darryl