Intern Adventures (aka tied with LOVE and red rocks for best weekend)

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Sorry for the delay, I have been a bit tired/busy since our return from our weekend adventure. Hopefully, I can still remember all of the amazingness. Here it goes...

Friday we booked it out of work as soon as we could. Most of us had started work at 5am so we thought we would be done early with plenty of time to pack the car and still get out early afternoon. This was furthered when we were all back at the office by 11am. However, we then learned our boss (one of them anyway) expected us to work a full 8hours, so we couldn't leave til 1. The minute it become 1pm we high-tailed it out of the office, showered, ate, packed the car, and managed to leave by 2:30. It was an interesting road trip, to be sure. Ended up that Ignacio didn't come, so since it was us four interns, we took Julia's car, which is smaller and therefore gets much better gas mileage. However, it did mean we were tight for space. Especially since not only did we have camping gear for 4 people (including food, some in coolers), we also had our stuff for bleed week which we dropped off at the barstow house on our way down. So the first 2.5 hours of the drive, until we got to barstow, were quite crowded. I was lucky cause I drove the first shift so I had quite a lot of room. Couldn't see out the back but other than that I had a pretty sweet deal. Gloria and Alex were packed with stuff in the back seat. Then, for further amusement, Julia's radio doesn't work and we were desperate for music... so Alex set up one of our receivers and antennas... and used that to pick up radio! lol It was highly amusing and quite ghetto-tastic, to be sure. Sittin in the car with this huge antenna propped up, trying to pick up radio stations. It was fairly successful. But after a while Gloria decided perhaps she would use her laptop to provide music (Alex had a device to plug into the car to enable a computer to be plugged in. So we did that which was quite lovely. Once in Barstow, we dropped off a few things, making the car slightly less full. Kept my laptop so music could continue to occur. Rest of the journey basically consisted of us switching drivers occassionally, and listening to lots of music via my computer. We also stopped for a brief dinner at fast food/food we had brought. Got to Fresno around 9:30 (to pick up Julia's bf from the train station... he was joining us for the camping excursion). From there things got a bit unfortunate, hit a detour that didnt really tell us where to go (and it was dark, for added fun). Stopped at a Walmart to get propane for the camping stove. Ended up on the road we were looking for, but still didn't get up to the campsite in Sequoia until around midnight. And remember, this was after being awake since around 4am. Needless to stay, towards the end we were a little loopy. Made for amusing times. Upon arrival at the campsite, we quickly set up the tents, changed and prepared for sleep. Course by then I was nearly wide awake and super excited to be in a forest, and feeling chilly! So, read for a bit before sleeping.

Up Saturday around 8:45. Stepped out of the tent and got to see the forest for the first time in daylight! Gorgeous, stunning, amazingness. And it was a bit chilly which was absolutely lovely. Drove a short distance to Grant's Grove where we saw General Grants Tree and the fallen monarch (an old fallen and burned out sequoia that you can walk through) among other things. Spectacular. From there we went to the visitor's center briefly and then went for a 3 mile hike to Viola Falls. The walk was beautiful and the falls were very pretty. Stayed by the water for maybe an hour. The water was from snow melt, and so it was quite frigid. All I did was stick my legs in (for short periods of time. hehe). But it was lovely listening to the water, enjoying the sun, reading a book. After hiking back out, we ran into a ranger named Frank, who Julia sort of knew from when she interned there last summer. Anyway, he was super friendly and offered for us to camp in his backyard for free! Very excited, we set about making it happen. Most of us went to break down camp, while Alex stayed by the visitors center to try and sell our camp site. He found a nice german couple (yay!) who needed a camp site and so they payed us for the 2 nights! We then set up camp in Frank's backyard. Absolutely gorgeous. We were all very jealous, and wishing we could live there. Cute little cabin in the middle of the forest. Lovely. After setting up, we headed down to Lake Hume, but stopped on the way to do a little walkin through the forest. Stumbled upon a clearing, with cows! 😊 And a giant sequoia that had been chopped down and was just an enormous stump. Alex decided that would be a perfect place for a picnic and we quickly agreed. It was interesting getting up (had to be boosted up. a bit scary at first but really not bad at all) and once up it was wonderful. Ate some snacks, and then had to figure out how to get down. We all chose different methods. Mine worked well, except for the fact that I scraped up my arm pretty badly. It totally looked like I got in a fight with a lion or something. Just my right arm. Two spots with big scratches, then 2 scratches from Friday at work. haha. (By now they are mostly healed, which is good). Once we had all safely dismounted from the trunk, we headed down to the lake to hear Julia's former boss/coworker give a bird talk. It was quite informative and we got to see a red-tailed hawk, a great horned owl, and a burrowing owl, up close which was cool. On the way 'home', we stopped at one of many turn-offs and as it was dusk, we got to see darkness fall, see the first stars emerge, and see the moon rise before a mountain range, right before our eyes. It was wonderful. Eventually we left because we were hungry. Back in Frank's backyard, we built a fire (quite successfully I might add; although the dry wood may have been key) and managed to cook a fairly decent huge batch of mac and cheese. Ate and enjoyed the campfire (including smores, of course!). Sang a few songs (Alex played mandalin... awesome). Eventually it was only me and Gloria. Talked for a bit while the fire died out and then went to sleep.

Sunday, got up and talked to Frank and some of Frank's friends. Learned that Frank was gonna be giving a guided tour through Grant's Grove, as John Muir, Scottish accent and all. It was quickly decided that we must go to this. It was totally worth it. He was great. Learned lots of cool stuff and heard great stories. After that we drove down (or up?) to Red Wood Canyon for a longer hike. Did what is called the Burnt Grove and Sugar Bowl Loop (approx 5-6miles, uphill for quite a bit, especially in the beginning). It was absolutely gorgeous. The panaramic views were incredible and the trees themselves were all lovely. Once again, it was a perfect day. We had the best weather possible the whole weekend. So lucky. Sunny, blue skies, in the 70s. The whole hike took me maybe 3.5hours and that was with some stops and some deliberately slow hiking so I could take everything in. It was nice. We started out all together but in no time we had separated due to different hiking speeds, etc. So for the most part I was alone which I really enjoyed because I kinda of like hiking by myself. Hardly encountered any other people and so at times I could imagine that I was all alone in nature. I love it. Such a marvelous afternoon. I even saw a deer up close! Took some pics and got a short video of it as well. 😊 Once I finished the hike, I waited a bit for the others. We then went to get ice cream (while Alex finished hiking.... he did a longer loop. That I thought about doing but I was afraid it would take me too long) and then came back for Alex. Back at the camp site, Frank and his wife and friends were around (yay!). It was a really great night. They cooked dinner and then we were able to use their kitchen to cook our stir-fry (ended up we bought the wrong fuel for the stove and we didn't feel like trying to cook it on a camp fire). Sat around eating (shared all food... they had awesome food. and our stir-fry was quite yummy as well), drinking and sharing stories. Frank is such a great story teller and so were some of the others. They were all so friendly. It was really great. We also did some singing. Alex played some Mandalin. Also, the one guy was originally from Russia and he knew some old russian songs which we all sort of picked up on. So much fun. A really marvelous night. I hated for it to end. We stayed up quite late talking and singing. But eventually had to go to sleep.

Monday it was all over. We tearfully got up, packed up the car, had breakfast, said our goodbyes and thank yous to Frank and co., and headed out. So hard to leave the trees. But leave them we did. On the way to Fresno we stopped to get fresh fruit from a stand. Because, after all, we were in the Stone Fruit capital! So cheap and sooo delicious! I got plums, peaches, and a huge nectarine. I still have some left. I have been savoring them. 😊 From there we returned the propane, dropped Julia's bf back at the train station, and then had lunch in a sort of park in Fresno. The drive back was quite uneventful. We took our time. And then when it was my turn to drive, we had a little miscommunication and end result, I drove the wrong way so we had to take a different method home. Wasn't a big deal cause we had maps. But cause of that we ended up much closer to LA... actually got within maybe 25 minutes of the city before turning north. So the whole deal took maybe an hour and a half longer than it would have but luckily we weren't in a rush. Still got to Barstow around 6pm. Stopped for groceries and then went to the house in Barstow. Really glad they let us stay there that night and just meet everyone out in the field on Tuesday morning. It made things much nicer. 😊 It was such a wonderful weekend. I am so glad that I got to go to Sequoia. It is gorgeous. I hope to go back one day and spend a longer amount of time there... at least a week would be nice. So much to see and do. But I'm grateful for what I was able to do and see. 😊

Bleed week (or days, rather) was pretty cool too but I am too tired and have rambled too long to talk about that now. Will try to write another entry sometime in the near future. And will try to pick out some photos for this one soon. 😊

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Photos

Sequoias with people for scale
in grant's grove

General Grant's Tree
3rd largest tree in the world by volume