Carl Henning

Sequoia National Park is home to some big trees. It’s hard to do them justice with a camera because you can’t get far enough away easily to take the picture. I tried with the discontinued Photosynch app but it has…

Kings Canyon National Park is administered with Sequoia National Park and they abut. But the real first question is “Where’s the apostrophe?” I thought it should be King’s, but based on the Spanish translation I saw (cañón de reyes) it should be Kings’. Regardless, the apostrophe is missing in the official name. Well I’m glad that’s settled.

The San Francisco Giants baseball stadium is Oracle Park. This is my 14th visited ballpark of currently used ballparks. I don’t know when or how it happened but I have a goal of visiting all Major League Baseball ballparks. Sixteen to go.

We came across the Pigeon Point Lighthouse quite by accident. The GyPSy Guide was finished by the time we got this far north.

Author John Steinbeck was a native son of the Monterey peninsula. There are a lot of references to him in the area. We opted for the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas. We were uncertain if this would be worthwhile. It was. Of course, we were aware of some of his novels (and the resultant movies), but there was a lot we didn’t know. Did you know his first wife (of three) was Carol Henning? We didn’t.

Yes, another mission. There were 21 missions in California separated by one day’s walk. Franciscan Father Junípero Serra started nine of them including Carmel Mission.

Our GyPSy Guide alluded to the 17-mile scenic drive at Pebble Beach. This turned out to be a great drive with birds, seals, and scenery. Apparently there are golf courses here, too.

Meandering up the Pacific coast, we spent a few days in Monterey. We were here in 2017 and you will want to go back to the post Coastal Critters for the jellyfish and anchovies videos from Monterey Bay Aquarium.

We passed the Hearst Castle a couple times (going to and from the elephant seals) before I concluded I would take the Grand Room Tour. The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of William Randolph Hearst was “yellow journalism” which Wikipedia defines as “newspapers that present little or no legitimate well-researched news while instead using eye-catching headlines for increased sales.” They never mentioned this during the tour probably because this type of journalism has gone extinct.

After Santa Barbara we picked up our GyPSy Guide for Big Sur at San Luis Obispo. He suggested leaving the Pacific Coast Highway to visit Moro Bay. We did and were rewarded with views of seals and a partial view of Moro Rock. Back on PCH we passed San Simeon and Hearst Castle to see the elephant seals.