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Nest week I’ll be
heading out to California to visit my daughter who lives in Northern California
about 60 miles from San Francisco and about three or four hours from Yosemite
National Park. For the last three years we’ve gone to Yosemite National Park to
camp. However, because of the horrible fires this year we probably won’t go
there although if it the fires have been put out we may at least go for a day’s
visit.
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| My daughter Mary on an overlook. |
Yosemite is the most
awesome place I’ve ever visited and I’ve visited a lot of national parks like
Grand Canyon and others. Three years ago my youngest sister and brother-in-law
went with us and camped in a campground on the edge of the park. We had such a
good time. That was my first trip there, I think, although my daughter Mary and
I might have gone there the year before and camped in Curry Village which is in
the valley in the center of Yosemite National Park. I know we stayed in a tent
on a wooden platform with steps going up to it the first year we went. All
those white tents reminded me of a Civil War Army encampment. Another year we
stayed in a cabin in Curry Village which was quite nice.
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| Another awesome view in Yosemite. |
This year we’re going
to camp in Big Basin a state park not too far from where she lives in Benicia
California. We’re going to travel along the ocean and stop at various small
towns on the way to Big Basin. I’ve been there before but not to camp. It’s a
forest with huge red wood trees that grow over 350 feet. Quite awesome, too,
although not as much as Yosemite.
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| My sister took the picture of me and her husband. |
Yosemite also has an incredible grove of Giant Sequoias which are in the redwood tree family and the most awesome trees I’ve ever seen even more so than the giant redwoods. Both the tall redwood trees and Sequoias grow to ancient ages because they have a high resistance to fire, insects and diseases. I have two dawn redwoods on my property. They started out not much more than six feet maybe, and now they are quite tall.
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| Mary by a Giant Sequoia |
Whether we go to
Yosemite or not, I’m looking forward to my trip to California where we will
camp for a few days, go to San Francisco another day, and hopefully take a trip
to Yosemite National Park.
If we do got to Yosemite to camp or stay in a cabin,
the one thing I’m really looking forward to is to go see Lee Stetson, who is
the world’s foremost John Muir portrayer. I first saw him at a Cuyahoga
Valley’s Happy Day’s lodge program portraying John Muir with another man
portraying President Theodore Roosevelt. Then Mary and I saw him in a theater
in Curry Village in Yosemite. My daughter took a picture of me with him, but I
don’t know where that picture is now. Later that week we went to the town where
John Muir lived not far from Benicia. That was very interesting, too.
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| Mary and I at the John Muir Museum |
Have you ever visited
Yosemite National Park?
Have you ever camped in
any National Park?
