Central Valley & surroundings

This is the continuation of my California trip. We started our trip by driving to Bakersfield and then heading up to the Seqouia Natl Forest and Park with friends. The next part of the trip, we spent a few days in the Los Angeles area, which will be covered in another post; followed by several days driving along the coast north from LA, which will be covered in yet another installment.

So here's the headwaters of the Kern River, in the Seqouia Natl Forest. Pat and Troy fly fished - somewhat successfully - while I knitted. We camped there for a night, which was quite chilly.


We returned to Bakersfield, to enjoy some delicious deep pit barbacue, and the next day we headed up to the Sequoia Natl Park which is home to some really big trees. Staci and Pooky (not her real name) joined us for this hike.
Sorry, no photos of Bakersfield itself. You'll have to make the trip out there yourself if you want to see it. On Thursday, we drove from Bakersfield to Chino Hills, part of the Inland Empire next to Orange County. The San Gabriel mountains separate the Central Valley from LA, and being mountains, we managed to find a dirt road that crosses them. Here's the view from the top, looking back at the Central Valley.We really didn't get a good view of the city as we dropped in from the mountains. It turns out that visibility is really, really bad in LA. See that blue sky in the photos above? You won't see that in the next post.