We're on our way to Kings Canyon National Park, and we have a long uphill climb to get there, so we got an earlier start. We completed about half of it yesterday, but after 4444 feet of climbing in 33 miles, we were finished.
Today, we're refreshed and it's still cool.
The climb is pretty steady, but we're slow - 3,4, maybe 5 mph. In the shade, the "face flies" come! They're tiny flies that hover just in front of your face... Occasionally, one will land on my glasses and walk around. Just a torment- they go away when the breeze picks up or the sun shines. I ate a few, but that didn't seem to deter them and they didn't taste that good.
On our way out of Pinehurst, there were a few signs like this one posted. The town had just returned from a mandatory fire evacuation a couple of days before we arrived.
As we climbed, the view opened up a few times.
We finally made it to the park, but the campgrounds were closed due to the fires, so we decided to go on to Sequoia National Park to see what we could see there - the General Sherman tree is close to the highway and our route would be mostly downhill to Three Rivers, where we planned to stay.
As we crept up the hill, a car slowed down next to to tell us that they loved the "blindly" lights we have mounted on the backs of our helmets because they saw us from a long ways away. We love 'em, too! And, our rear view mirrors...
Here's the General... Panoramic style.
If you ever see a footprint like this, it means the General is on move.
It was getting late and we still had miles to go to get to Three Rivers, but here's how we got there.
We started way up here...
And went way down here.
For around 20 miles! It took two days to gain the elevation we gave up in about an hour! Sorta like spending your whole pay check on Friday night!
Trudy and I agreed it was the best decent we'd ever done.
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