Holy Granola!

We spent a little over a week in San Francisco visiting some of Matthew's many friends. The week quickly filled up with people to see. The days were not as busy due to everyone working but the evenings were full. So we ate out a lot, walked around the city and one evening went to the Exploratorium. It was a blast. I hardly have any photos though. Here's what I have..

 We did about an 8 mile hike in the city and went across the golden gate bridge

 taking the ferry after the walk across golden gate

 I was inside the Pixar studios!! One of his friends works here and we met him for lunch.

 One of many cool murals all over the city, this was in the mission.. my favorite part of SF

 Dolores park

 Deep in a tech discussion I could not follow

From SF we spent a day in Big Basin doing a 10 mile loop hike to a waterfall. Loved this place, it had some really fun quick changes in biome. It is also home to some of the biggest trees I have ever seen... so far.

 beautiful large redwoods

 banana slug!

 us

 saw a lot of trillium

beautiful waterfall along the trail

From big basin we drove to a boondocking site for the evening that was near the coast.  In the morning we walked to the beach, enjoyed watching the plovers and waves, then headed to the mountains. We we went up into the Sierra and it was snowing! It didn't last however. The next several days we were there it was sunny and beautiful. The snow slowly melted away. We spent a few days just hanging out working on projects and reading. Matthew made a new pair of shoes that he wrote a post about...http://www.blog.smalladventures.net/2018/04/howto-simple-homemade-shoes.html

 beach not far from big basin

I was confused lol

After a few days in the woods to recover from being in the city we were ready to play again. We went south and into sequoia and spent a few days sport climbing.

 view of our campsite from the climbing area

 5.10 a/b climb

 5.11- 

easy, fun 5.7

Next on the agenda, Death Valley National Park. It was pretty hot here, as you might imagine. We had way more fun the we expected. I mean with a place called death valley, I didn't expect to see much. Here are the photos...

Ageureberry point

 sweet campsite we found off a road not even on the map, old ruins of a house maybe?

 It had a great view in the morning

 Mosaic canyon hike

 Kept coming across delicate yellow flowers on the trail and eventually found the bush with the flowers

 we are not sure what animal this is from, do you?

 lowest point in North America!

 using my new backpacking umbrella to block the sun

 Artists palette rocks... photo not as good as reality

Red cathedral along golden canyon

That little guy is a rare pupfish, they only live here in super salty water

 Darwin falls, short 1 mile hike out

 So many Joshua trees in death valley!

 Racetrack, a spot where the rocks move. The found out it is during winter when water freezes, then as it thaws, the ice moves and drags the rocks along... has a cool effect.

 Did a lot of off road driving, the mountains looked like a painting

 Hot springs! Spent a day here soaking up. There is a spring on the left and right, you can always be in the shade by moving from one to the other as the sun moves. Very nice.

 Burros!

 Matthew having some fun. Oh we have a new little dent in the truck lol

 clearing out the air filter after some seriously deep sand, Eureka dunes in the background

better shot of Eureka dunes. We hiked up it in the evening... well not quite to the top because of a rainstorm that started to roll in and the winds picking up.

Ok, that's all for now. We are in Bishop making plans for the next few weeks.