Bachelor degree? Yes please!

Well here I am in the garlic capital of the world, Gilroy, California. We are staying in a pretty basic motel room. Motel room you might think, wow swanky, but the reason is that we couldn't find the campground we were wanting to stay at so we just kept on driving knowing there was the garlic town we had been told about further along the highway. We also reminded ourselves that it was Thursday = Grey's Anatomy so one thing led to another and here we are. We came in the dark but the smell of garlic was overwhelming, they take garlic serious in Gilroy.
P.S. Grey's was a re-run, which is ridiculous and made for two unhappy Canadians!

We embarked on our two week road trip on Tuesday, as part of out practitioner's workshop, which is a chance for OEE students to learn something new.

This park is located near the southern end of the Sierra Mountains. The drive to the park is gorgeous, through a series of rolling hills and away from the big city. The valley between the Sierra mountains is also fruit territory, We've seen all sorts of fruit trees: oranges, lemons, cherries, hazelnuts, plums, grapes, you name it we've probably seen it. We even picked some oranges, but they were terrible and woody!

We got to the park and stayed at the lowest campsite Potwisha, which was at an elevation of roughly 2050 feet. We got in just in time to catch a few minutes with the sun to make some dinner and then hit the thermies. Note: we were the only ones at the campsite for the two nights we were there and probably the only ones sleeping in the entire park!

The first night was pretty clear night so we didn't think anything of the weather. Mind you we had got into our tent around the usual bedtime of 7:30! I was awoken in the middle of the night to this weird sound. I shook Amy thinking it was a bear as we are in bear territory, but couldn't hear any breathing. So I was confused. Then I heard it again, but saw this weird shadow on the tent, it had snowed! Our tent was covered in a heavy wet layer of about 3 inches of snow. Thinking it was 3:00am I asked Amy and it was only 11:30, I couldn’t believe it. So throughout the night we woke up to kick the tent so it wouldn’t' collapse. We woke up in another winter wonderland! Sputnik! We didn't have a snow scrapper so I removed the snow with out new spatula and cleared the picnic table with a Tupperware lid, we're resourceful!



As a result of the weather, the road up to Giant Forest to the big Sequoias was limited to cars that had chains. Us + rental car = no chains! So we didn't get a chance to see them at this park so we just took advantage of what we could. However, we did see two male deer with pretty big antlers, and two lynx so we didn’t leave disappointed.



Stop #2: King's Canyon and Sequoia National Forest
On Thursday, we were on a mission to see some big trees, so we headed to Kings Canyon, which is another National park but associated with Sequoia. We drove for roughly 2 hours and climbed the Sierras. The weather had been cooperating throughout the morning and the sun was shinning melting the snowy roads. The entrance into Kings Canyon was significantly higher then Sequoia, about 6000 feet. So we petted snowball and put her into 2 gear and up we went, climbing higher and higher above the valley. As we got higher, the trees got bigger and we were officially in Sequoia territory.

We drove to the Generals Tree trail which leads you to the General Grant Tree which happens to be the 3rd largest tree in the world in terms of volume. It was huge! There was also a Sequoia that had fallen over 100 years ago, but had barely changed as the sequoia trees don't rot. The fallen tree was used as a shelter and home base for many and you can see burn marks from fires their campfires. We trekked through the 3 ft. snow to check it out. The trees were absolutely incredible. Pictures unfortunately don't do the trees much justice, so use your imagination. We also took a drive to have a look at the canyon itself which was pretty beautiful.

Me hugging the General Grant Tree

Sequoia Forest

Amy in fallen Sequoia

After too many hours of driving and a few cases of the car crazies here we are in garlic town. We are going to San Francisco today and staying at Amy's friends place until Monday, when we continue our 'schooling' down the coast!

I also have been learning how to crochet, or crotchet as I like to call it and have officially become a member of the club, and have made my first toque!