Kings Canyon - Sequoia

It's time to head out again! Well, it is really past time ... We planned to go last  week but I am still trying to shake this virus that came to visit. Since we waited out my coughing we decided to just go up today. This is the day Sunset Campground at Grant's Grove opens for the season. The kids will join us for the long weekend and this is their preferred campground. There has been having rain up there this week, which means there is probably no snow on the ground. Anyway, we are looking forward to getting out of the valley as the temperatures are supposed to be going up, no big surprise. By the time we pick up the trailer from storage and finish the prep, we left around noon. 

Our drive up was uneventful. Lovely wildflowers adorned the sides of the road but there was really no place to pull over and take photos of them. There are a lot of dead pine trees, it is sad to see. The ranger at the entrance station said it is due to both the drought and insects. Because of the drought the trees don’t have enough sap to ward off the insects. He said there are 20 million dead trees. I believe it but I wonder who counted them? It is 42 degrees and it began to rain just as we were finished setting up. It let up a little bit and we took a drive and saw wild life, lots of deer. We drove through other campgrounds and there are some people braving the weather. You can see how close the fires got to the campsites last summer when driving through Crystal Springs Campground. The parking lot is torn up by the Visitor Center, so we skipped that, the gift shop, and the restaurant for now. We popped in the General Store to take a look, it is pretty much unchanged still having the various supplies a camper might forget at home. The newest addition is a food court just east of the General Store. Prices looked fair and the sort of stationary “food truck” looking buildings looked were clean with some seating provided outside only. Back to the trailer and we will have dinner, play cards, and go to bed with our Kindles in hand!