Familiar Faces

Last week, some of Vol Fan's family came for a visit.  It was so good to see some familiar faces.  And hear familiar accents:)

We began their visit with a trip to Sequoia National Park.  On our trip in June, we passed a beautiful lake.  And I was looking forward to seeing it again.  I was flabbergasted by what I saw. It was gone!

See that little bit of blue - that is all that was left.  If you look close at the hill on the right, you can see the brown line showing where the water reaches.  All that pretty green grass, all those trees were covered by water a couple of months ago.  Apparently this lake fills with snow melt in the spring and is quickly used by the residents and farmers in Southern California.  The need for water conservation was made VERY apparent by these two visits.

We were smart enough on this trip to pack a picnic.  Vol Fan grills a mean hotdog!

I was just as impressed with those trees as I was on my first visit.  I don't think something that awesome can get old.

The highlight of my day happened as we were leaving the General Sherman tree.  Vol Fan's aunt spotted a deer running thru the woods so we slowed down to try to catch a glimpse.  That was when I saw what he was running from - a brown bear.  He was very intent on eating pine nuts and paid no attention to us.  But he was VERY close to one of the most frequented areas of the park so I am sure he will be meeting up with some rubber bullets from the park rangers in the near future.

And in answer to the age-old question, do bears shit in the woods?  I don't know but they definitely pee there!