Day 13 - Kingsburg, CA to Ridgecrest, CA

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We had an ambitious day ahead of us today, planning on riding through Kings Canyon National Park, Sequoia National Park, and the Sequoia National Forest, and with a couple of delays along the way and the decision to cut the day short and head for the hotel, in the end we did it all anyway. It's been a long day, so here are the highlights and some photos, but I'm going to try and make this entry quick (it'll probably be long anyway).

We took some great roads through California farmland again to get to Kings Canyon/Sequoia. Of course, this meant passing another farm stand with peaches, nectarines and apricots today. We stopped and chatted a bit, and picked up some fruit. It turns out the picking season for this fruit started yesterday, so it truly was fresh off the tree. We got into the parks and the first thing we stopped to see was the General Grant. These trees are HUGE!!!

From there, we headed up to Lake Hume and took a break enjoying the alpine air and the beautiful views at the lake. We then headed back down towards the General Sherman. Again, another enormous tree! By volume, this is the largest tree in the world. From here we made it to the Tunnel Tree, a sequoia that fell in 1934 and has had a tunnel cut through it so cars can drive through.

We then got caught in some construction traffic for about 45 minutes, and finally made our way out of the parks. From here, we decided that since it was already around 2:30, we should head straight down towards the hotel and skip the second portion of the Sequoia National Forest since we've been through quite a bit of it already. Of course, there's no direct route from where we were to Ridgecrest, so we followed the GPS, and where did it take us?? Through the forest. it was a beautiful ride, and while I hoped to see a bear, that didn't happen. Instead though, we had some cattle in the road during an open range area we were in, and then we had an even more exciting view than a bear. We saw what we think is a lynx cub cross the road in front of us. It looked like a leopard but was much smaller, and it was really cool to see especially since you could tell it was young. I only wish we had time to snap a picture, but we didn't have the helmet cameras on and there was no chance to stop it was so quick.

We finally got to the hotel around 8:15 and ran out for dinner at the Asia Bistro here in Ridgecrest. The food was excellent; sesame scallops and walnut shrimp, with some potstickers to start.

With full stomachs and a healthy dose of exhaustion, it's time for bed. Tomorrow we continue east to avoid the bad weather in the northwest, and we'll pass through Vegas on the way towards Zion National Park.

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