A Wintery Weekend in Sequoia National Park! (Part 3)

More 2011 Adventures

Happy Monday, everyone!

It’s a splendid day in Three Rivers! The clouds from yesterday have lifted, leaving the temperature pleasant, the air fresh, and the snow-kissed peaks peeking! It’s the perfect morning to get out a towel and work on my tan by the pool. Ahhh… It will be a shame to leave.

Checkout was at 11:00, and since the foothills were not yet filled with wildflowers (only the fruit trees were so precocious), I decided to postpone my trek through the foothills until next time and instead see what I could see on the drive home.

First stop: The Three Rivers Historical Society, marked by a huge Paul Bunyan statue out front, which was carved from a single sequoia trunk between 1941 and 1942. I wandered around the museum, which took a matter of minutes, since it only spanned a single room. It was difficult to make sense of everything, since there were no information tags at all! For instance, there was an old fashioned bar organ with a number of nobs that reminded me of modern synthesizers, but when I asked the curator about them, he had no idea what they were for! (I later learned they’re called stop knobs.) The one thing I understood right off the bat, apart from the dolls and cougar rugs, was the primitive flashlight: a candle in a tin can! It was really cool! I’ll have to remember in case I find myself lost in the dark and don’t have batteries for my wax! Wait a second…

I bid farewell to the curator and continued on my way, pausing at the Lake Kaweah Visitor Center to learn about this big ol’ lake, built to stop the spring run-off from flooding the nearby town of Visalia. In the process of settling the area, lots of unwanted guests arrived in the surrounding hills, like pigs and… gulp, beavers? It also turned out that the grass that made the hills so beautiful was also not native to the area. After it was introduced, it choked out all the native plants! Talk about deadly beauty! I wanted to stay a while and test the waters, but the clouds were rolling in. It was time to press on westward!

Next stop: Visalia. I heard there was a historic theater here, and yes indeed, the Fox Theater awaited me on Main Street. Built in 1930 and venue for such masterworks as Snow White and the Three Stooges, this glorious structure really stands out from the low-key shopping area in which it resides! The theater is still running, but I did not enter it. Why, you ask? I have a very sensitive nose, and for reasons currently locked in mystery, the entirety of Main Street was bathed in the smell of stale vomit. Not a good first impression of Visalia. So, I contented myself with a picture from the outside and a dream that the inside is just as pretty. Then, I hurried out of town.

The return home passed smoothly, and I laughed uproariously at the opposite side of the freeway, jam-packed with cars, vans, trucks, rickshaws, horse-drawn buggies, the works for about five solid miles. I wasn’t laughing at their misfortune, of course; I was laughing because I know how they feel!

So, it’s time for a wrap-up! I didn’t see any signs of George, despite the overwhelming beauty of the park, but I did learn some valuable lessons:

There are kind, warm-hearted people in abundance in Three Rivers and Sequoia National Park!
If you’re going to rent tire chains, practice with them before you get into the snow!
Wear more than fur to the winter mountains!
Bring slippers!
Bring waterproof boots!
Bring a flashlight!
When you’ve got water bottles in the trunk, drink them!
Pack a lunch or get eaten yourself by resort prices!
Hug more trees! After all, they can’t hug each other…

That’s all for my first national park! Until next time…

Happy trails!