Into the woods

We've been in Three Rivers now for over a week, but our furniture and boxes are stuck in a warehouse in Roswell, the victim of a bottleneck that has occurred during the busy summer moving season. Frustrated as we are with the situation, we’re holding up fairly well with the camping gear, clothing and technology devices we brought with us. Since our moving contract expired on Friday, we’ll now be receiving over $100 for every day that we don’t have our stuff, so that ought to motivate United Van Lines to figure out how to get it here soon. We’ve also had issues with getting our internet set up. We barely get cell reception in the canyon, and wanted to use Skype for making calls from home, but without the internet working we have no way of directly troubleshooting the problem, so we’re going to have to get a land line. Even in this day and age, this process will take a week. Settled is not a word that enters our vocabulary very often right now.


Thankfully, happy is much more frequently used. Our first weekend here, we had little to do except get out and enjoy our new park, so we took two hikes in the foothills along different streams that are currently filled with significant snow melt from a long winter. The summer has been cooler than usual, which allowed us to hike comfortably in the foothills, when we would otherwise be roasting. We visited a small waterfall up Paradise Creek on Saturday and hiked up to the much larger Marble Falls on Sunday. Both days, we were struck by the awesome power of the white water. The cool spray counterbalanced the deafening roar from the falls making for a pleasant, if noisy, lunch spot.

Peter began his first whirlwind week of work by absorbing all that he could from his new supervisor, who happened to be finishing up his last week of work. Peter will now be tackling the challenges of this newly created position with minimal guidance from the person who spearheaded the effort to bring him here, which will present many challenges, but there are also opportunities for professional growth. In between numerous trips to the DMV, I met with the fire ecologist for the park and discussed an offer to bring me on as an emergency hire in mid-July working for the fire effects crew. I’ll spend the rest of the summer collecting and compiling field data from various study plots throughout the park, which will add to the ongoing research about how fire interacts with the ecosystem here in Sequoia and Kings Canyon.

This past weekend, it was hot down in the valley, so Peter and I retreated to higher ground in the Giant Forest, the most famous grove of Sequoias in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It contains the world’s largest living organism, the General Sherman tree, along with four of the five largest Sequoia trees in the mountain range. This old growth forest was protected back in the late 1800’s before it was significantly logged, so along with the Sequoias, there are Ponderosa pine, Douglas fir and a variety of other evergreen trees that are of significant size for their particular species.

The forest is unlike any other I’ve ever been in. The giant trees provide ample shade, but the area doesn’t get abundant moisture all year like the Redwood forests, so the ground isn’t covered with plants and shrubs - mostly rotting logs and detritus from the evergreens. There are occasional patches of exposed rock, flowers and ferns on the ridges, but for the most part the forest floor is a carpet of brown. This makes the wetland meadows that much more striking. Streams coming down off the mountain pool in the flat depressions between surrounding ridges, forming patches of vivid green.

I know it sounds like I’m making this up, but the forest smells like baking sugar cookies and the birdsongs and rushing streams remind you of the background sounds you hear on those CDs where they combine classical music with the sounds of nature. It’s just the most tranquil place I’ve ever been. We sat on a downed Sequoia tree in the middle of a small meadow for an hour just watching the birds and enjoying the day.

On our return hike, we watched from fifteen feet away as a Pileated woodpecker hacked at a decaying log in search of grubs. We also saw four mule deer bucks with their antlers in velvet, a mother marmot and her baby, one juvenile black bear, a mother with three cubs, and another adult bear foraging for food at the base of a Sequoia tree! We’re chalking it up to beginner’s luck, because even the locals were amazed that we saw six bears on one hike. We ended the day at a going away party for Peter’s supervisor, Pat.

We’re very glad we decided to take this opportunity and move to Three Rivers. Each day gives us one more reassurance that it was the right decision for us. We look forward to continuing our exploration of the park and the town, but we’ll be putting that on hold at the end of this week as we go to Ashland, Wisconsin for a vacation/family reunion/wedding. I start working for the park the day after we return, so my next update will probably a few weeks from now.

The Move

Well, it’s been quite a week. Two movers came on Monday morning to start packing up all our stuff. They worked efficiently and had the whole house packed and labeled in boxes about seven hours. They came back the next morning to inventory and load all the boxes and furniture into the truck. Being freed from the burden of packing, Peter and I were able to follow behind to clean, sweep and vacuum each room thoroughly. By the time we left, the place was empty and spotless. It was so strange after three years, to leave this house we loved in a town that we merely tolerated. I was too conflicted to cry, a little nervous because we haven’t sold the place yet, and excited about all the prospects ahead. These kinds of major life decisions bring about so many different emotions, it’s hard to know where to even start.

Peter and I got on the road Tuesday afternoon and made it to Gallup, New Mexico the first night. This was the first of many towns along I40, which parallels the famed “Route 66”. We passed through Winslow, Arizona (don’t forget Winona) and stayed in Kingman on our second night of the trip. Needless to say, I had the song stuck in my head at various times during the entire drive on the interstate, not only due to the town names, but to the myriad of signs and billboards advertising tourist attractions related to this nostalgic piece of Americana.

We had a bit of an easier day on Wednesday, stopping for a few hours at Petrified Forest National Park, which is in the Painted Desert east of the Grand Canyon. Special geologic circumstances allowed for the preservation of these 250 million year old trees and also replaced the organic wood with a rainbow of minerals and crystals. The trees are scattered across the surface of the ground like newly fallen and cut logs. It’s not a traditionally pretty landscape, but the pastel shades of red, white, gray, purple, yellow and orange set against the bright blue sky give it a peaceful, if surreal feeling. Being a geology nerd will certainly help make your visit even more enjoyable :).

Once west of Kingman, we entered the Mojave Desert, which extends into the center of southern California and then goes up the middle of the state until the town of Mojave. It just goes on forever! There were intermittent Joshua Trees to break up the monotony, and I know most deserts are deceptively rich in plant and animal life, but they’re just not that exciting when you’re zipping along at 70 mph. Finally, north of Mojave we began to climb up into the Tehachapi Mountains, which were covered in dried grasses the color of amber on the south facing slopes, and carpeted with some unknown lavender flower on all the north slopes. The mountains must have been awash with color during the peak of the spring bloom after such a wet winter.

Coming out of the mountains, we saw the fruit and vegetable fields of Bakersfield for the first time. The central valley of California is flat, smoggy and frankly about as far from the typical image of California as you can get, but there’s no denying its agricultural importance. We saw field after field of grapes, peaches and almonds. We also passed a half dozen trucks pulling double hoppers of garlic on the highway and two trucks stacked with cardboard boxes of watermelons. All that produce you buy in the store has to begin its life somewhere and most of it probably came from the central valley.

We arrived in Three Rivers on Thursday afternoon around 4pm. Having just visited in April, the drive up into the mountains felt comfortingly familiar. With the air quality being pretty good, we were able to see the snow capped peaks of the Sierras as we began our drive up from Visalia. The green fields of the spring have dried to gold, but were no less beautiful. Lake Kaweah is much higher now than it was in April, due to the significant spring runoff this year. As soon as we got out of the car at our rental house, we could hear the roar of the Kaweah River.

As promised, the house had already been unlocked by the property manager so we could just walk right in and look around. It’s a small place, with two bedrooms and one bathroom, which is going to be a big change for us, but it’s a mansion compared to the 350 sqft cabin we shared in the Tetons for over a year. Our stuff has yet to arrive on the moving van, so we’re left to imagining where in the world we’re going to fit everything. But it has a big kitchen with lots of cabinets, a cozy living room and a great view of the river and surrounding hills in the backyard. For having rented the place based on a few digital photos sent by email, it could have turned out much differently!

This is going to be our last weekend to relax for a little while. No boxes to unpack yet, no stress or pressures from starting a new job, no big trip planned. Just a visit to the local organic farm stand, a classical music concert, some hiking and a little browsing around town on our agenda. I think that’s about all we care to take on at the moment :). We’ll deal with everything else starting Monday.

Moving On

This is our last week of work in Carlsbad. We're looking forward to closing this chapter in our lives and moving on to the next. While there's a lot of uncertainty that lies ahead, there are definitely a lot of exciting things to look forward to, including trips to the California coast, hiking in the Sierras, being closer to family and friends, and getting to know the community of Three Rivers.

As we've moved around to a few parks and visited many others, we've come up with a short list of ideals for where we'd like to live - small town, not too far from a decent sized airport; relatively mild winters, not too far from decent snow; gateway community with a strong connection to the park, but not overrun with tourists; mountain park west of the Mississippi. Pretty specific and pretty darn picky, so imagine our surprise we we visited Three Rivers.

We flew into Fresno and arrived in the town, which is situated along the Kaweah River, a little over an hour later (check). During the month of April when we visited, it was as green as the Shire, while an hour's drive up into the Sequoia groves we were walking on four feet of snow (check, check). Sequoia & Kings has two entrances. The first is a pretty straight shot out of Fresno through Squaw Valley, while the other is along the narrow, twisty road out of Three Rivers. Because tour buses and large RVs can't negotiate the narrow roads, the majority of the traffic goes through Squaw Valley. This has allowed the village of Three Rivers to develop into an artist colony that caters to, but doesn't totally rely on park visitors to exist. The town has a good number of shops, hotels and restaurants (and more than it's fair share of art galleries), but is pleasantly devoid of tourist traps and hordes of people. And it just happens to be at the doorstep of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The perfect place for us? Perhaps, but perfection and reality don't usually line up so easily.

Sequoia & Kings is well known for having some of the worst air quality in the park service. Wind currents carry car pollution from the Bay area through the San Joaquin Valley, where it mixes with particulates from the agricultural industry and a thick blanket of smog descends on Fresno, Visalia and Bakersfield for the entire summer. A small eddy breaks off of this current (pay attention to those little swirls next time you paddle a canoe and you'll get the idea) and heads straight up the canyon toward the park. As long as the air temperature stays below 75 F, the smog stays down in the valley, but summertime in Three Rivers means temperatures in the 90's and occasionally over 100 degrees. We'll know pretty quickly when we arrive whether the smog may impact our physical or emotional health. We've consoled ourselves with the fact that if it does start to get us down, we can always go up to the high elevations of the park on the weekends. That might save us for a while, but how long we can rely on this escape route is the big question.

We're both excited about the move and all the adventures that lie ahead. Looking forward to updating you during the coming weeks and months as we get settled, experience the park and explore further afield!