Framedlight

We left Sequoia NP around 8.00am. The day before the driver's side rear indicator light had stopped working and I did not fancy driving a long distance without it, so we stopped at Three Rivers, the first town outside the park, to see if the garage stocked a bulb. I thought it would be an easy task but we had apparently to go to a Dodge main dealer to get one, the nearest being in Bakersfield a few hours away. We needn't have been concerned though as half an hour down the road it started working again and we were told 'it did that' when we returned the car!! It was a sunny morning and we soon came across a lake so we stopped for a look. It was Lake Kaweah, a reservoir that was used for boating as well. Mist was hanging over the background hills and we drove all morning in and out of fog. We went south along the 65 as far as Bakersfield where we stopped for coffee and to swop drivers. We passed orange groves and vineyards although the soil was dry and sandy.

We finally made the visitor centre, the Giant Forest Museum to glean a little information and when we parked found there was snow on the ground. We realised that a tour of the Crystal Cave, which sounded inviting, was to start in about an hour and that it was a 40 minute drive to the entrance so we went straight up there. The tour was led by an earnest young man who was well acquainted with the geology of the cave and told us all about it. Crystal was a complete misnomer as it was limestone with some mites and tites.  I have only been to large caves in France, where the guide always says 'Voila un chou-fleur' or 'Ici la Madonne', so it was quite refreshing to find geological features described in geological terms. I assumed that water would take aeons to percolate through the mountain, but in this instance rainwater gets through to the bottom of the cave very quickly. I did not take a picture inside the cave but there was a little waterfall outside which I did

We woke up in Potwisha campground to a beautiful sunny day and found the campsite to be full of animals, mule deer, acorn woodpeckers, western scrub jays and numerous squirrels. It was the nicest place we stayed during the holiday. We did not rush breakfast as we were still recovering from yesterday's driving and it was good to sit in the sun watching the birds and deer. When we did make a move we drove towards the visitor centre but stopped on the way to see the river and and parked by some interesting information boards about the Potwisha native Americans who used to live in the area. We saw one rock which had some petroglyphs on it and there was a huge stone which had cuplike depressions which were mortar holes used for grinding acorns and buckeye nuts. There was also a rock known as hospital rock as a man called Albert Everton had been treated here by a doctor in 1873 after accidentally being shot in the leg. It was carrying on the tradition of