On Toward Laguna Seca

We left Yosemite through the south entrance (exit?) so we could stop at the Mariposa Grove, where the giant sequoias are. We spent about an hour wandering through the lower grove. They are awesome in the true sense of the word--not quite as tall as California redwoods, but with a much more massive girth, with thickly furrowed trunks. Their bark is so thick that it can withstand fire;many of the trees we saw had blackened lower trunks but their foliage, high above the fireline, was green and healthy.

Upon leaving Yosemite, we had two more nights on the road before getting to the rally at Laguna Seca. We spent the first one at an Army Corps of Engineers campground at Eastman Lake near Raymond, CA. We forgot to take a picture of our campsite, and it's too bad. Our site overlooked the lake and we had the whole loop to ourselves. It was off season, the camp host had left the previous day, and there was only one other campsite occupied in the whole campground. I walked the dogs down to the lake, and they had a great time racing around the meadow after rabbits on the way there. We spent the next night at Coyote Lakes County Park, near Gilroy. Gilroy touts itself as the Garlic Capital of the World. Apparently, it used to be, but, according to my brother Tony, a garlic afficienado, that is no longer the case. At their annual Garlic Festival, most of the garlic is imported from China. The two pictures at the top of this post show our campsite and the lake. It was prettier than it looks, with lots of wildlife. The deer grazing by the lake wandered right by our campsite, followed shortly afterward by a flock of wild turkeys. There were cranes and herons on the edge of the lake, and a huge hawk.