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| Another BIG tree |
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| The famous No 3 |
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| What a feast |
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| Leaping frogs |
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| View along the way |
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| Local shop |
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| Apprentice mechanics |
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| Millerton Lake |
Tuesday 19th June – We like it here so much we decided to do another night to fill the gap between here and Tuttletown (just like saying the name.) With a day to kill we decided to head down to Kings Canyon to see some more trees and maybe a canyon. It is also Budget day again and we need to call them to extend our car contract to 5th July. Off we go towards the canyon. A lovely drive en route with a slight detour into an unsceduled town because we were yacking on and both missed the turn. Oh well, twas a nice town.
We arrived at Kings late morning and 1st job was the car phone call, yet another farce ensued….. At first phone the card wouldn’t work, at the second phone we got through but it was an automated service. Don’t you just love it, the system could not understand my accent as I yelled the answers into the phone. I was just about to destroy the phone into oblivion when the computervoice decided to put me through to a real person to see if they could tell what I was saying. After hanging on for about two and a half weeks I spoke to a real bod who could only just hear so I had to shout again and share my booking with half of the car park at Kings Canyon. The upshot was the contract was extended to the desired date and I had lost the will to live!!
After the battle with Budget we drove down to a grove of giant sequioas where the 3rd largest tree in the world ‘General Grant’ was. Yep, it was one hell of a big tree and so were most of the others around it was quite a splendid trail. After here we headed for yet another lake where we could have our picnic lunch. We found the lake but no picnic site so we had to haul ass back the 15 miles to another one. By this time it was mid afternoon and we were treed out and brassed off (Budgets fault) so we headed back to our lake side camp. Another swim in the warm waters before the usual evening rituals of a shower, glass of pop and some food.
Wednesday 20th June – Moving on day to the famous Tuttletown. What is it famous for, well I’ll tell you. Not only Tuttletown but the whole area hangs onto Mark Twain who was here once many moons ago and wrote some book called “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” (apologies to Mark Twain fans here.) More on frogs later. We had a lovely drive round the outskirts of Yosemite through the stunning scenery and gorges of the area before arriving at Tuttletown Recreational Area late afternoon. Nice pitch overlooking another lake but no Bob Bears but still the old rattlesnake warnings. All we saw this time was Dan Deer wandering around at dusk thankfully.
Nice big park but not enough toilets tho’. Also we had to don hiking boots to go and seek out the water tap. Nevertheless, the weather was great and we had a nice spot. Must do a piece on toilets/restrooms/bathrooms sometime soon.
Thursday 21st June – One of the problems we have been been having is a milk problem. Now because it has been so hot in sunny California we have been trying to get milk in the mornings for our breakfast and my tea as we have had a few that have turned into damn good lumpy cheese. We have a cool bag which we have tried filling with bottles of cold water, did work sometimes but not once we got over 100 dgs.
Anyway I digress, I had to go out and get some milk and it was 2 miles just to get off the campsite and to the main road. Anyway fuelled up with breakfast we headed out to downtown Senora which has a famous main street that has been used for a few movies. We did manage to get hooked up to the local free wifi hotspot in town so we caught up with the world and made a few bookings for the next few nights.
We then had a wander round town looking for another post office which we found and was open this time but we didn’t have the post!! Quite a splendid looking old street with shops selling things like tobacco, liquor, bate, guns and ammo. Like you would expect in any old town high street. With a boot full of huge cigars, a couple of shotguns and a shed load of ammo we headed up to Safeway to get some serious food shopping for dinner. (We did actually pay for it we didn’t hold up the store, only joking about the ammo!!)
We got back to the site early and got our BBQ fired up and had some pop to wash it down – super…..
Friday 22nd June – Another fine and sunny day and yippee wer’e off to see some more trees. We went to Big Trees State Park, where there were more sequoias and redwoods all on the rather large size but not quite as big as the ones seen at other groves. After another tree fix we headed back down the valley to Angels Camp where Mark Twain allegedly was staying when he wrote his famous short story mentioned earlier about jumping frogs. Now, this whole area has Mak Twain post and signs dotted all over the place including the hut in which he actually stayed when he was here. However, Angels Camp steals the show on Mark Twaining by actually building the whole town around jumping frogs. There’s one every ten feet on some building somewhere and they even host an annual frog jumping contest. That’s only half of it, the winners of this amphibious olympics get their name, the frogs name and the lenth of the jump carved into a stone which becomes a paving stone on the towns main street. A bit like Hollywoods walk (or hop) of fame. The winning jump currently stands at about 14 feet!! It’s actually the combined length of two hops, I had to ask in the visitor centre as I don’t know many frogs that can jump 14 feet, not sure there’s many that can do 7!! After such excitement we headed back for the usuals. The evenings highlight was spotting an ospreys nest atop a telegraph pole with two young sat in there. Very entertaining, I’m sure they would have appreciated a couple of frogs………….
Saturday 23rd June – It’s 3rd time lucky with the post office this morning and yes it was a success, the mail is finally on its way after a 600 mile drive round California!! Now off down to Jamestown, another famous movie town for different reasons. Here in Jamestown is a small steam locomotive line called Steamtown 1897. On this line runs a superb little engine called the No 3 which is in fact hollywood super star status. It is the most filmed train in Hollywood and the list of both TV and movie appearances is endless. It starred in the Virginian, Back to the future 3, High Noon, the Unforgiven and even the Marx brothers Way Out West to name but a few. We of course had a run up and down the line on the train in a super old western carriage. We then had a guided tour of the site which included the famous roundhouse where all the exhibits are kept.
From here we headed up to Columbia State Park which is a kind of western style Beamish museum with all the attractions of the time. It was very good with saloons, jail, shops, blacksmith and of course stage coach rides. It was a very well done attraction and so much so we headed back in the evening to see some live music and dancing but sadly that didn’t start ‘til much later and when we arived we sat through the auctioning of blueberry pies etc so decided to get back to base.
Sunday 24th June – It’s goodbye to Tuttletown and all it’s attractions today as we head off to Sacramento for a night in a motel before heading up to the high altitude wilderness of Lassen Volcanic Park.
The drive to Sacramento went well as it wasn’t too far so we were there early afternoon. We were on the hunt for stove fuel again so we ended up at the Home Depot an American type BnQ but 4 times bigger, as you would expect. Armed with fuel we headed back to the motel where there was a pool so we swam then we TV’d and got an internet fix. All this done it was a good break from putting the tent up and a good nights sleep on the outskirts of Californias state capital.
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