Last Saturday was spent at the Zydeco Blues Festival. We arrived at Spanish Landing park in San Diego around 10:15 had to wait about 30 min. for the gates to open. Once in the sounds of music and the smell of Cajun food hits you. It takes a while to get used to all the different sounds and smells. As you walk through the food area everything smells so good. It is hard to decide what to eat it all smells so good.
We start out at the Bourbon Street Stage where Tyler Ray Davidson & Leilani Kilgroe are playing the blues. Tyler is only 17 years old and very good.
From there is just got better. There were so many good bands to watch. Joe and I come to this festival every year and are never disappointed.
Our favorite bands this year were Chubby Carrier & the Bayou Swamp Band. This is band is zydeco at it's finest.
Then there was Ladies Shoes Blues Review with Sue Palmer. This is an all woman boogie woogie and Blues Extravaganza. Sue Palmer always puts on a great show and this year was no exception especially since she added one of our favorite blues ladies, Deanna Bogart, who plays saxophone and keyboards and some times she plays them at the same time. She is awesome.
The last show of the day was quite possibly the best of the day, Nick Gravenites, Mark Hummel and Deanna Bogart with Johnny Vernazza, the Legendary Chicago Blues. These are some of the blues great players and they definitely did not disappoint us. Mark Hummel on the harmonica was one of the best I have ever seen, add the legendary Johnny Vernazza on gutiar and Deanna Bogart on sax and keyboards and you had the makings of one unbelievable performance, but then they added legendary blues singer and guitar player Nick Gravenites. All I can say is WOW!!!!!!!
Needless to say by the time the show was over we were on music overload and ready to head home. What a great day
Sunday we were on the road by 7am heading for Sequoia National Park. It took us all day to get there. The 5 freeway is very rough and driving 55 for once was a good thing. We were amazed to go through LA with no traffic. That was a first. It was a long drive to Three Rivers just outside Sequoia park. We are staying at Sequoia RV Ranch. Our spot backs up to the Kaweah river. Here is the view from our fifth wheel. It has been so nice to sit out there and have dinner and listen to the river flow by, this has been my favorite place to stay so far.
Our next stop was Crescent Meadow, we did the 2 mile hike over to the General Sherman tree, this is the biggest tree in the park at 40ft in diameter. We saw our first Marmot on this trail. He was nice enough to pose for me.
Tuesday we stayed in the foothills and drove into the South Fork trail head. It was 3.6 miles into Snow Slide Camp. This is a beautiful trail, made more so by the fact there were no other people besides Joe and I. I had a little trouble with the altitude gain, it was gradual but I could still feel the effects of it. We thought it would be a piece of cake going back to the truck, but we realized that what we thought was gradual wasn't so gradual going down hill. Our knee's were pretty sore by the time we made it back to the truck. They weren't any better after the long drive back into Three Rivers. My only consolation was the ice cream cone I had from the Reimer's Candies-Gifts-Ice Cream shop. This was really good home made ice cream, very creamy. I had a chocolate almond joy coconut cone, it made my day.
Bottle nose dolphin
