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.

California Safari

We just returned from a 2-week trip to California, which turned out to be quite a wildlife-viewing trip. It wasn't really planned that way, but here's the list of notable animals viewed, followed by select photos.

• 5 bears - 2 on two different days near Kern River headwaters, then 3 (a mom with cubs) in Sequoia Natl Park the next day.
• Deer innumerable - most notably nestling among the hollow trunks of sequoia.
• Hawks and vultures innumerable.
• Sea lions - including a very friendly pup at Oxnard
  
• Harbor seals
  
• Elephant seals - the young bulls were play-fighting along the shore
• Humpback whales on two days at two different beaches - at Oceano we were treated to several whales jumping up with the front half of their bodies above water, then splashing down hard on their backs. The next day at San Simeon with just whales surfacing and tails slapping was anti-climatic.
• Dolphin on most days at the beach
• Pelicans innumerable dive-bombing for fish, usually right where the dolphin and whales were also eating.
  
• 1 bobcat - it sauntered across the road just few feet in front of us as we were walking around a campground.
• The Budweiser Clydesdales at pasture - okay, they're not wild, but they were just hanging out on a hill next to our campsite.