Heather and I just finished up a little 9-day drive in the Xterra around Central California. We covered 1,445 miles from San Diego, with overnights in Visalia, Angels Camp, South Lake Tahoe and Bishop. We stayed on the pavement, but still managed to see quite a bit. Here are a few pictures.
Since most here like to see the trucks, or other gear, we'll start with this.
Our first stop, after a very long drive due to 3 major incidents on the road, was Kings Canyon National Park. They have some really big trees there.
The little road up to the Panoramic Lookout has some pretty tight turns. Here's a shot over the dashboard on the way back down.
From Kings Canyon we drove north up to Angels Camp, and hung out in the Gold Country for 3 nights. The foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains are particularly nice this time of year.
In the town of Jamestown there is a great railway museum. This old oil-fired steam locomotive still runs, they take it out quite often. It's also been used in the filming of several movies, include Back to the Future III.
From the Gold Country we drove over Ebbetts Pass (CA-4) towards Lake Tahoe. Along the way we stopped for a hike at Calaveras Big Trees State Park. More really big trees.
The middle stretch of CA-4 is known as the Ebbetts Pass National Scenic Byway. I can see why. This is a great stretch of road. It's a bit too narrow to have a center stripe.
