We woke up Saturday morning somewhere outside of Fresno, conveniently near a Casino which took some of Dave’s money the night before.

We headed for our next stop – exciting Fresno!

Lots of flat open farmland, not much to see but the weather was beautiful, and heating up a bit!

Once in Fresno we found a place called the Fresno Breakfast House, and it had this adorable outdoor courtyard! I loved it, and the cool fountain So Dave snapped a picture of me. Check out the cool long hair I’m sporting now.

After breakfast we went to the destination that had brought us all the way here – the Forestiere Underground Gardens. Head to their website to check out the details, but basically Mr Forestiere back in the early 1900’s started carving out his amazing home, eventually expanding it to cover many acres, all underground where life was cool and breezy. It’s really an astonishing place, and so ‘green’, it’s actually seems like he was years ahead of his time. Recycling his water for plants, capturing rain, staying out of the sun and using the natural flow of air to cool. It’s just amazing!

His first love was orchards, and he bought the land intending to grow fruit, but the land was too rocky. Above ground there are these wonderful fruit trees. As a NW Native, it blows my mind to travel a few hours south and see Oranges, Grapefruit, and Lemons growing on trees in March!

This lovely pergola covered the waiting area to enter his home.

Just a few shots of the amazing underground home, and the open courtyards and trees growing in the sunshine. It was like some transplanted bit of Mediterranean paradise. And it was much cooler underground, so much that it was instantly noticeable when you came back up. This guy really knew what he was doing. I’m so glad his family was able to preserve some of his home so we could enjoy it.

After Fresno we headed up to visit another Casino Dave wanted to try out. As we were driving up to it we were seeing something coming up on the horizon, then I realized this town we were driving up to seemed to sit at the very base of a HUGE dam, with the spillway aimed right at Main Street! As we got closer the highway turned away from the dam, so it only looked like it emptied out on the highway.

That was Friant Dam, and behind it was Millerton Lake. We drove to the edge of the parking lot, but as you can see, the edge of the lake was nowhere near. There were boat launches that were high and dry, and the actual shore was WAY, WAY out there. You would have to drive quite a ways on what should have been lakebed to get to where you could put in. All that green stuff should have been covered in water.

After losing some money at the casino we headed back to Fresno, ate lunch at a Boston Market, which is one of our favorite places, but we don’t have them in our area anymore, and then headed for Yosemite.

Lots of this purple bush blooming along the roadside.

There was a section of road wiped out, and we had to sit at a stoplight for a long time while we waited for the one-lane temporary road to clear for our turn to go. We pondered all the other folks who had been in the same predicament, and spent their time decorating this sign.

We finally laid eyes on the Merced River, but it was getting awfully late. We stopped and checked in at our hotel, the Cedar Lodge. It looked clean and neat.

We turned right around and drove on into Yosemite, just to get a feel for the place. By the time we got to the lodge, it was dark. We walked around a bit, but it was very confusing, and things were farther apart than the maps on the signs made it look like. Finally we retreated to our car and drove out, and on the way past El Capitan I could see the twinkle of lights high up on the wall. Were climbers really up there after dark?!

We got back to El Portal and the grill was about to close, so we hurried over, to find a line of about 30 other late eaters waiting to put in an order! Luckily the kitchen stayed open until everyone was served. We secured some chicken strips and fries and headed back to our room, where we stuffed ourselves and watched a Tom Cruise movie on the TV. We were out of cell phone range, and Wi-Fi was expensive, so we couldn’t research for our trip the next day, we had to just chill out and relax, and see what would happen.

_

We drove through the flat farmlands, with just the gentle rolling hills on the East side of us, wondering where these ‘pinnacles’ could possibly be, and how big could they be? But if it’s a National Park, there must be a reason, so we drove up into the hills in search of it. As we drove along the narrow, winding, one-way road, we started getting peeks at a rough, rocky area sticking up above the soft curves of the hills, something clearly out of place.

Finally we rolled up to the ranger station at the park entrance and the parking lot was pretty much empty.

We went in and paid our fees and the ranger said she had a short video we could watch on the history of the park, and it was only about ten minutes, so that seemed like a good deal, since we had never even heard of the place before that morning. It’s nice to have a little context while we walk around it. Pinnacles National Park. It turns out there is hiking, rock climbing, and caving to do in the park, plus there’s a chance to see California Condors!

She pointed us up to Chaparral trailhead, which it turns out is where all the cars were. Not that it was exactly busy, but there were a few folks there hiking around. We decided to head off to the Balconies Cave Trail, which was supposed to be .6 miles from the parking lot. We figured that would be pretty easy and give us a closer peek at some of this park.

On the way up the trail we kept seeing these little lizards hanging out on the fence rails. Lizards! There’s something you don’t see at home!

The view from the parking lot was jaw dropping all by itself. It’s hard to express how big this wall of rock is! It reminded me of the Garden of the Gods in Colorado. It was really amazing!

Around every bend were more amazing sights!

All these rock walls were like mountains. And in fact they said they were the remains of a mountain that had been torn apart and crumbled.

This rock wall probably was a hundred feet high, at least.

Giant boulders were everywhere, having fallen off the crumbling walls.

The trail wound through scrubby treed areas, and back into clearings with more fantastic views.

Sometimes we got to walk under the boulders! You didn’t even have to watch your head in this tunnel (well, I didn’t anyway).

Wildlife spotted #2 – a cleverly camouflaged squirrel. He was hanging out in a dry creekbed munching on something. Sadly, because of the drought all the creekbeds were dry. I think this place would have been even more beautiful if they had water in them!

We finally got to the entrance to Balconies Cave, and peeked at it, but decided we were not equipped for any serious caving. A nice European couple had just come all the way through it, and said it was a fun hike. They were resting on the rocks before heading back.

The views on our walk back were just as amazing. Huge rock spires jutting up out of the green woods.

The clouds looked like they were threatening rain, but no such luck. This place was pretty dry and it stayed dry during our visit.

More wildlife – a turkey! She (I think) trotted along the road ahead of us, occasionally looking back to see if we were still following her – though we stayed quite a ways back.

She finally headed up the hill above the trail to get away from us.

We were quickly back to our rental – a red Ford Edge. When offered an upgrade at the rental counter, they offered a bunch of high end cars, but I thought we should take the Edge. Since it was basically the same as our Ford Flex, I thought it would seem familiar and comfortable, and I was worried if we drove a Volvo around for four days we’d come home with Volvo Fever!

So that was the end of our little side trip. I could definitely come back here again and explore more. It was beautiful and spectacular and really different from any place I’d been. And we only saw a tiny bit of it. This was an unexpected treat on our journey!

_