Sunday, July 14, 2013

California- Heading Inland

I think I can get a decent sampling of our trip inland in one post, so here we go.


The Redwood forest is really impressive. If you ever get a chance to go, I suggest you do. Not that you can tell scale in photos, but DH is standing in front of a tree, and he is over 6 ft tall. No way to get a photo of how tall the tree is. There are several trees that have had tunnels cut through them, and you can drive your car through them. Does that give you an idea how massive these trees are?


This pic was taken in the infamous Donner Pass. The area is beautiful, but even in this day and age the roads are closed in winter.


We went by Lake Tahoe. I had been there with my dad 30 years ago, and I wanted to see if it was still as pretty as I remembered. It was.


The views were just gorgeous, even just driving down the road.



We skirted the eastern side of Yosemite National Park, but never entered it. The view here is looking into it.


We stopped at Manzanar internment camp. It is one of America's shames that we made an entire ethnicity go to internment camps during World War 2 out of fear. Most of the Japanese people here were under 18, born in the United States, so they were US citizens. It was very sobering to come here, but I am glad there are parts of it still here, so we can remember and not repeat our mistakes.



This is the cemetery at Manzanar. Over 100 people died while being detained here. Most were moved to private burial places after the war, but a few remain.

This is the last of the California pics, but here are some in Arizona, on our way home.


London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down... Well, actually it is doing just fine, in Lake Havasu, Arizona. The town purchased the bridge and had it disassembled and moved to Arizona. It cost almost twice as much to move the bridge as it did to buy it.


In Oatman, Arizona there are wild burros wandering the town. The mines in the area had once used burros for working the mines. When the burros were replaced by machinery, they just let the burros go free. There are now 600 or so burros wandering the county. Some come into town, but others avoid it. We saw burros on the sidewalks, in the streets, even poking their heads into stores. We even saw baby burros just a couple days old.


I thought it was cute when this burro was checking out a store owners cat.

We really had a lovely vacation, and I'm so glad we went!


1 comment:

Stephanie Newman said...

The photo of the war internment memorial site has the most amazing sky over the mountains! Loved the edge of Yosemite National park. That's somewhere I would love to visit if I ever get to the U.S.