California was in drought when we were there, and very, very dry. Lake Kaweah near Three Rivers looked severely depleted. The heat made us glad to put to good use of all the motel pools we encountered.

We headed to the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park. Winding roads and sweeping vistas.

We needed to stop for breaks periodically, to allow tummies to settle!

Our destination was General Sherman, the biggest tree by volume in the world.  I was so looking forward to seeing it.

It is one GINORMOUS tree – the patriarch of all trees.  It’s impossible to take in the scope of it all at once. But beautiful; so so beautiful. Extraordinarily difficult to photograph and effectively convey its size – for me, anyway.

Just a mere estimated 2300 to 2700 years old. What.

Wandering around in a forest full of these Giant Sequoias was just inspiring.  God – what You can do just blows my mind.

It’s always been a dream of mine to visit the redwood forests, so this was a happy, happy, tank-filling day for me.

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The bark of the giant sequoias is surprisingly soft and spongy.

These sturdy trees were toothpick-like, in comparison with the Giant Sequoias.

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And here I met my first chipmunk. They are so much tinier than I had envisaged. Much smaller than squirrels; easily small enough to fit in your hand. I had imagined them to be more on par with the size of a possum.

Long day for a little one.

Heading off to Barstow, we found ourselves stuck in the forest for half an hour while roadworks were undertaken. While this was a bit of a pain, there’s still something kind of therapeutic about redwoods. There are worse places to get stuck.