Sequoia and King's Canyon National Parks, June 9-11, 2006

Earlier this month, we made a trip to the 2 "forgotten" National Parks in central California, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.  We drove up on Friday, stopping in Bakersfield for coffee with a high school friend of Rodney's that lives there.  We left at 5:00 AM to avoid LA traffic and pulled into the coffee shop in Bakersfield at 7:15 AM!

The drive there to the entrance is about 90 minutes.  We took CA-99 to CA-198 through Visalia.  We bought a National Parks Pass so we could use it as incentive to visit other parks Rasila has not seen that are drivable from Southern California.

We camped in the Lodgepole campground, along the Marble Fork of the Kaweah River, which is the west drainage of Sequoia National Park.  King's River is what drains Kings Canyon, and the Kern River drains the valley between the Great Western Range and Mount Whitney.

We did short day hikes and drove over to King's Canyon's visitors center, General Grant Grove, and the Panoramic Overview.  There is so much wilderness there you have to see it to really appreciate it.

Paso Robles April 8th and 9th

We went to Paso Robles in April since Rasila's brothers, Seton and Belden, were running in the Wine Country Half Marathon.  We drove up Saturday, leaving early (6 AM) to avoid LA traffic, and arrived at Meridian Vineyard at about 10:30 AM.

We then visited the Bianchi Vineyard.  They have a neat little pool that you can operate remote controlled sailboats on.  Rasila was ready for food and a nap then, so we ate lunch at a BBQ place and checked into the Motel 6 and took a nap.  Rasila's brothers were late leaving North Hollywood, and didn't leave until after 1 PM.  We went downtown and checked out restaurants and picked an italian one for dinner.  We then took a bike ride west of town.  Her brothers arrived as we were finishing and we took a quick shower and all went to dinner.

Her brothers were up early at the start of the race by the time we took Ziwi for a walk and hit the nearby espresso shop.  We rode our bike over to the start, where while talking to her brothers, the race started!  They ran to the start and came back abotu 5 minutes later.  We rode through town to a the south side, where a bagel shop was spotted the day before and got bagels for all before coming back.  Rasila's brother Seton finished first, then Seton, then Seton's friend, Heather.

We went back to the motel, cleaned up and got lunch before hitting the vineyards for some afternoon tasting.  We visited Peachy Canyon, Dark Star, Hunt Cellars, then an Olive Oil farm, Pasolivo, then Opolo to finish out.

We then headed home through Santa Barbara, while Belden, Seton and Heather spent the next week camping.

Rasila visits her paternal Grandmother

Rodney, Rasila and Ziwi flew to Louisville, KY to visit Rasila's paternal grandmother over the weekend of March 31-April 2.  Her grandmother had taken a head injury that almost did her in last year and she has been deteriorating since.  We expected it to be perhaps the last visit and it was, as she passed in late May.  Nonetheless, we enjoyed our visit with Rasila's aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandmother and narrowly avoided the tornadoes that were running through that part of the country at that time of year.

Rodney's brother gets married

Rodney's brother Roger, got married in March in Salt Lake City, Utah.  It was a whirlwind trip, with Rasila and Rodney arriving on a late night/early morning flight, waiting 30 minutes for a rental car, then arriving at the hotel at about 3 AM, with Rodney skiing the next morning at 7:30 AM.

The wedding was held at the Methodist Church and the reception was at Red Butte Gardens.  The garden overlooked the city and it was spectacular at night.

Rasila and Rodney skied the day after with a friend of a friend of Julia's, who was from Charlotte, NC, but orginally from France.  She was an excellent skier and very nice.

Winter 2006 Skiing

We made 4 additional ski trips this year, Mammoth in January, February, and May and Snowbird and Alta in Mar.