Southwestern U.S. Tour: Day 2

Sequoia National Forest

After an overnight stay at the Kern Lodge in Kernville, California, I pointed the car north to drive up into the Sequoia National Forest. The drive up was gorgeous, mostly following alongside the Kern River

The Trail of 100 Giants was my first exposure to Sequoia trees. They are pretty stunning, pretty amazing, pretty remarkable. Prior to seeing them here, I did not realize that they were scattered among a forest of mostly other kinds of trees. I guess the pictures I'd seen of northern California's redwoods had me imagining I'd been in a dense grove of primarily sequoias. Nonetheless, they are a sight to behold.

After the magnificence of the Giant Sequoias, it was time to head out of the Sequoia National Forest and work my way to the smog and traffic and modernity of Los Angeles. (Well, the actual destination was Santa Monica, but it's about being in the larger L.A. metro area.) 

Make no mistake: there is a heckuva lot of beautiful territory to behold between the mountainous terrain of the Sierra Nevada mountains and the rolling oil rig-dotted flatter lands of Bakersfield.

Given the steep grade and winding hairpin turns on the narrow road down the mountain, I did find myself guffawing at this warning sign:

It seemed much more likely and reasonable to me that I'd see signs like these (which are indeed warning signs I did encounter on this trip):

I mean: seriously? I've got to worry about cattle in the road? Burros and bears and deer and such would make sense to me. But not cows. However, four sharp turns later, what do you suppose was in the road?

 Once I got down far enough off the mountain, but before leaving the rolling hills totally, it became this incredible canvas of grasslands stretching farther than the eye could see. I'm sorry this photo does not quite capture the unreal quality of it, but at least it gives you a taste: