From Palm Springs we headed to Hollywood to visit Universal Studios and Hollywood hills.

Hollywood sign

View of LA skyline from Hollywood hills.  Lots of haze \ smog in the air.

Entrance to Universal Studios 

Visited Hogsmeade...

and Hogwarts.  We also road on the flight simulator inside Hogwarts.  Fun Fun!!

Went to a show to see several animal actors in action.  Including this fellow who was in the Harry Potter movies.

Saw some of our Jurassic friends from the move.

Saw some Transformers.

Hung out with the guys.

Was scared by the Walking Dead.

The guy on the right is an actor, he is very good at scary you!  I don't know how he stays bent over like that so much.

Visited Springfield.  Moe's actually serves a craft beer you can only get here.

Went on a back stage tour.

Car look familiar? Unfortunately you can't drive it.

Stage used for the War of the Worlds movie. 

Lastly as you leave you go through Universal city where you can stop and eat at Bubba Gumps.  Here you will find shrimp served every way mentioned in the Forrest Gump movie.

After the Mojave we went to Palm Springs.  Here we road the Palm Springs aerial tramway  to see  the Chino Canyon.

View of the Chino Canyon on the way up the Tram.  The tram car also rotates as it move up and down the cable so everyone in the car can see all of the canyon.  

View of Palm Springs from one of the restaurants at the top of the tram.

After visiting Yosemite we went south to the Mojave desert.  Lots of beautiful things to look at in the desert

These are some pictures of Red Rock Canyon.  

Here Kim is checking out some of the local accommodations.  Other than the beautiful window view it didn't meet our requirements.

Joshua trees are usually the only thing you'll see that is green.  Here is a small grove of them.

Sunrise over the Mojave.

Solar panel farm.  There are several of these covering many square acres.  In this picture the panels are flat because the sun is overhead.  The panels move with the sun.

There are also huge wind turbine farms in the desert.  You can see all shapes and sizes as you drive down the road.  Its nice to see California making use of different renewable energy sources.  

All around Yosemite and in the Sequoia National Forest south of Yosemite there are groves containing some of the worlds largest trees.  Sequoias.  These are the large cousins of giant redwoods.

These trees live longer and are larger in diameter than redwoods.

A mock cutout demonstrating the year rings of a Sequoia.

Sadly before these trees were protected someone thought this tree's stump would make a good dance floor.

The tree below shows a cutout in the middle of the tree done years ago as a tourist attraction.  Amazingly this tree is still alive with one branch still producing nutrients for the tree.  Most of the trees we saw cutout like this one died because of the cutout. 

This is big enough for a compact car to drive through.

01.21.17 - We are sad to say this tree has fallen due to the high winds and storms that have hit northern California in late December early January.  

The General Sherman tree is the largest Sequoia in terms of board feet and size.  It is not the oldest.  It's estimated age is 2,200 years old.  The base of this tree has a circumference of 103 feet.  I don't know what's in the dirt around this tree but it feeds this tree well.

This is the General Sherman from about two hundred yards back so I could get the whole tree.  It is 275 feet tall.  Notice the top has a lot of dead branches, this is caused by lighting strikes.  You wouldn't want one of these to fall off while you were under the tree.  This would be like being hit by a tree falling off of a cliff 200 feet high.

This is what is looks like when looking up from the bottom.  This is a twin pair of trees sharing the same root system.  Notice the one on the left has been burned.  These trees often see several forest fires in their lifetime.  Their bark is two feet thick and insulates them from forest fires.

Sequoia's are protected now with less than five percent of these old trees still living.  So when a road is needed it has to go around or through the trees as shown here.  Tight squeeze to get through.  Many roads in this forest have a 20 feet length limit on vehicles. 

This beautiful view can be seen when leaving the Sequoia National forest.  On a clear day you can see eleven ridges from this vantage point.

Mark Twain's Cabin

On the way back from Yosemite we stopped by an old cabin once used by Mark Twain.

This was a key stopping place for merchants bringing supplies, via mule trains, to miners.

Yosemite National Park

There is so much to see in this park it is incredible.  I hope you can get some sense of the park from our pictures below.

You see these types of views all around the park.  

This is one of the many sights to see in Yosemite Valley.  If you look closely you'll see a small water fall in the back.

I bet there are some nice fish in this river.

One of the more visited sites in Yosemite is El Capitan.  Lots of folks like to climb this rock face.  Not me.

Best shot I could get while looking up from the bottom of El Capitan.

If you go north in Yosemite you can drive into the higher elevations (8,000 ft or so).  This is Tenaya Lake.  Very beautiful but cold.

This view is on the way back from the lake.  It looks like the rocks are flowing.

On our way to Yosemite from Angel Camp we passed several lake \ reservoirs and rivers that were either dry or very low.  Kind of gives some perspective on the drought California is experiencing over the past six years.

We believe the water line is supposed to match the tree line shown here.  Hard to see in this picture but the water level is at least 100 feet below the tree line.

Our next stop was Yosemite and Sequoia national parks.

While visiting Yosemite we stopped in a town called Angel Camp.  While visiting Angel Camp we learned they were known for frog jumping.  Why would that be interesting since all frogs jump?  Well here they have yearly contests and the winners are jumping 20 feet or more.  Unfortunately we were not in town during a contest.  Below are some pictures of frog statutes you can see around town.  Also while walking on main street you can see each years winner in plaques set in the sidewalk.