Safari Evening with the animals.  Here are the animals we saw during our overnight stay.  During our stay the lions were quite vocal all night.

As the sun was setting the Giraffes and rhino here grabbed a last bite before bed.

Throughout the night various animals would roam by our encampment area.

 

After dinner we were given a guided tour of the tiger exhibit.  This young tiger cub was very interested in us.  It was nice to see the tigers moving around their exhibit versus sleeping.

This male is approximately 3 years old.

The next morning we were allowed to visit the lion and elephant exhibits as the animals awaited their breakfast.

Again it was nice to see the lions moving around.  The male above also serenaded us a couple more times with his roar.  I guess he was hungry.

Our tent was next to the elephant exhibit.  So all night we heard them playing with their food containers.  Which they have no trouble throwing around.

Our next stop was San Diego to visit the San Diego safari zoo.  We had made reservations with the park, several months earlier, to spend the night at the park.  They call this Roar and Snore.  This is an event where you are allowed to enter the park as it closes to the public and observe the animals in their habitats at night.  You spend the night in a tent among the animals.

The inside of our tent.

 As part of the event you get to meet several animal ambassadors.  This is a Pygmy Falcon.

 Ant Eater

Echidna 

Kim petting the echdna.  The spines feel like plastic brush bristles.  You don't want to go against the grain with these.

Frogmouth bird

Since we were in the LA area near Halloween we also visited the Queen Mary in Long Beach to visit their haunted attractions.  The event is called Dark Harbor and consists of several haunted mazes.  It was a scary good time.

Entrance  

 Because of the very low lighting and flash limitations we were not able to get many photos.  Here are two from inside the Queen Mary ship.

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.