Lions and Tigers and Bears (oh my!)

Tuesday 24th April 2012

I did not have a satisfactory night's sleep last night. I made the mistake of opening a door and inadvertently letting some bugs in shortly before we went to bed. We thought we'd got rid of them all, but at 2am I woke to a high pitched whining, and a mosquito biting my neck. I managed to get it off in the dark, but didn't want to wake Claire so didn't switch the light on to hunt for it. So I've got a horrible itchy lump on the back of my neck, and Claire seems to have a bite on her head too, so I'm in trouble for not waking her up.
I thought we were safe when we got up, but there was more to come. I was busy packing my bag, when the biggest millipede I've ever seen INCLUDING ON TV scuttled across the floor. It was armour plated, and Claire had to deal with it because it made me feel funny.

The finger in the photo is Claire's (obviously), and the wet patch is from the glass she used to catch it. Just in case you were wondering.

Today's route took us through Sequoia and King's Canyon national parks along the Generals Highway, which is a nice road through the forest. It's so called because it links two giant trees named after American Generals.

The route was mainly nice but uneventful, except when Claire suddenly shouted "BEAR!". I was driving and didn't really know what to do. We'd agreed the previous day that if either of us saw a bear, we would shout BEAR. If we saw something else big and scary and unidentified, we would shout RUN. For anything else we'd stop and point and say AHH. Or UGH for millipedes.
So I turned the car round and we went back to look for the bear. I thought it was probably just a bush, or a man in a black coat. We found it mainly because another car had stopped, and the occupants were peering nervously out of the windows.
It wasn't just a bear, but two bears, a mother and her cub! We watched them for a while from the car, with the engine running, and the car in gear (just in case). When we realised that the bears knew we were there, but didn't care, we got out for a better look. We didn't approach them because that's when they eat you.
Claire took loads of photos, most of which were blurred because she was shaking with excitement/fear.
Eventually the bears wandered off out of sight and we carried on along our way.

We're still hoping to see a mountain lion at some point, but I don't think we'll see any tigers.

We visited another Sequoia grove, in King's Canyon national park. There were more big trees there. One had fallen down and was hollow, so we could walk right through it.

 
Another was the General Grant tree, which is the biggest tree in the world by width. It wasn't as nice as some of the other trees there though.
While we were looking at it, a little woodpecker started trying to peck a hole in the trunk! A thankless task if ever I've seen one. The woodpecker is on the left hand side, about half way up on the photo. It's about as big as a blackbird to give you an idea of scale.

We drove on after the woodpecker tree to a town called Mariposa. We're staying here for two nights while we visit the southern end of Yosemite national park.

We walked into town to get some dinner this evening. There was a choice of two eateries at our end of town. An American diner, and something called the Red Fox restaurant. Both were supposed to be closing at 9pm, but the waitress in the restaurant seemed happy to serve us even though it was 8.20.
We soon realised that the waitress (Christie) was as mad as a box of frogs. We really didn't know what to expect from the food, but we were pleasantly surprised.
The portions were normal sized, and my meal was actually pretty balanced and nutritious, and very tasty. Claire seemed to enjoy hers too.
After we went in, loads more customers followed, and we overheard Christie telling one couple "the food's great, but the service is a bit shaky".
Despite the illusion of madness and disorganisation, Christie turned out to be pretty efficient.
We're going to go back tomorrow night as it was so nice, and funny.

Tomorrow daytime we're heading into Yosemite Valley. This is the picture postcard scene you've probably seen of a green American valley with a river and a big rock.

We've already bought our own ingredients to make a pack lunch which I am very excited about.

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Location:Sierra Nevada, CA