We were still out in the wilds when I started writing this, so the photo of SF seemed completely inappropriate, but we returned there the next day. The vagaries of the interenet meant that I couldn't update until we were back home. We stayed at Watsachi Lodge in Sequoia National Park. En route from Lake Tahoe to Yosemite we paused at Mono Lake, where a friendly ranger lady told us just how much some friends of hers had just enjoyed visiting England and Wales! Then she showed us an osprey's nest through her telescope. We greatly enjoyed revisiting Yosemite, although we'd forgotten just how long the Tioga Road is! This time we had a river view at Yosemite View Lodge, and I was entertained by various small creatures running around on the river bank.

Yosemite Village was seething with people and all the campsites in the valley were full, so in search of a bit of solitude we drove to Hetch Hetchy, the less visited northwest corner of the Park, and checked out the reservoir and dam. The next day we drove up to Glacier Point before leaving Yosemite and had a thrilling meeting with a bear on the way!! After picnicing at Wawona we tried to be clever and make our way to Kings Canyon across country via some pretty lakes (as you do). This was to avoid the mayhem of the Freeway around Fresno. Our map was not detailed enough so we got lost! Had to ask directions of a friendly rancher. Turned out we were in Clovis, a suburb of Fresno. He kindly led us to the Freeway...! Eventually ascended towards the mountains again past pretty orange orchards, and entering the National Park, rather dismayed to find it was still 36 miles to Cedar Grove where we were staying. This involved a drive down into Kings Canyon, the USA's deepest! Had we reached our destination 10 minutes later we would have gone without our supper. It was an interesting rustic sort of place, and the scenery on the way was very dramatic.

The next day we went on to Sequoia National Park, which is adjacent to Kings Canyon, and we saw many more enormous trees, the most famous of which was General Sherman. It is the world's largest living organism, as tall as a 21 storey building, and thought to be about 3,200 years old. The next morning at Wuksachi Lodge we still had beautiful blue Californian skies so neither of us felt like returning to the city. However, we had to! We returned our trusty hire car in which we had driven 3,712 miles!

Actually, San Francisco is a wonderful city, although its very steep streets are not the best on which to pull your luggage to the hotel! On our last full day we explored Ocean Beach and walked miles in Golden Gate Park, and later revisited Fisherman's Wharf. We ate in Cioppino's as 8 years earlier. On our final morning we had time to attend a very nice lunchtime Eucharist in Grace Cathedral before making for the airport.

In conclusion... Well, we packed out our trash, parked on the pavement (sometimes!) but never the sidewalk, visited a comfort station to find a restroom and occupied a stall, avoided the median, not passed when there was a double yellow line in the middle of the road, made a left on red, yielded to peds on a crosswalk, frequently been delayed by flaggers, crossed a grated bridge, stopped in a turnout with a scenic vista, and finally put our baggage on a cart... We wouldn't have done any of this in the UK! Two nations divided by a common language??