Leaving Las Vegas, we drove to Death Valley for a wonderful hike, waited for the sunset, and after a nice dinner we decided not to see the sand dunes here in the daytime, but in the moonlight! It was a pretty scary feeling to walk alone to the dunes, but at least noone bothered us to embrace the landscape. We took the bear spray with us and, of course, a knife, because wildlife can be really wild in the USA. Yes, the dune pictures were all taken in moonlight, the surreal visuals are due to that (of course, with the naked eye it was a bit darker, I was a bit tricky with the pictures, but no lamp was needed for orientation). No one attacked us, so we were able to continue our journey to Sequoia National Park, home to the world’s largest tree, General Sherman Tree, just German.
It is not the highest, or the widest, but the heaviest and most extensive. So if you are underneath it, you can imagine yourself in the position of a small mouse standing at the feet of a 180 cm tall person and looking up. So we saw that too, but the biggest experience was not this tree, but the trip to the Forest of the Giants. Well, we’ve seen a lot of things, but it was such a defining experience that I can’t even put it properly. My great concern with the tour, by the way, is that I would like to pass on our experiences so that anyone reading this or watching our videos or pictures can be part of this fantastic journey. Walking through these mighty creatures is a feeling unlike any other. On the one hand, they have been here for thousands of years, surviving every storm and forest fire. On the other hand, the sight is so dreamy that you will not believe it exists. Like a fairy tale. Go out, go on a hike, a walk here is worth any blessing, and there are no negative consequences, indeed.
After the mammoth pines we headed to the famous Yosemite National Park, which is nice, but the other parks so far have been a lot more fun. This feeling is a bit like the experience in the Grand Canyon, we’ve seen so much that we no longer consider it as extravagant as the less famous but much more exciting places. However, we did a light hike here and even a nice sunset at the Glacier Point on the top of the valley. We are in no hurry, but there is still some distance ahead of us, so we headed out to San Francisco.
