Aug 31 we left for a ten day trip to San Francisco. We saw as much of the SF area as possible, visited Alcatraz, drove the Golden Gate bridge, visited Napa and then headed south to Monterey. 

From Monterey we drove south along the Big Sur to Cambria where Charl and Rina (our friends living in Clovis) met us and arranged a family house to sleep over. 

The following day after some birding drives we headed inland towards Fresno/Clovis to Charl and Rina's house where we stayed over. We left early morning the following day for Yosemite park and was pleasantly surprised by so few people, the Rim Fire had some good for us after all I think.

Yosemite was everything we expected and more. The scenery is absolutely fantastic and more than made up for the obvious lack of birds. I expected much better birding but with so few tree species one can understand why.

Leaving Yosemite we returned to Clovis and stayed with our friends again. A really good "braai" saw to a lovely evening!

Charl and Rina drove us to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks on the Sunday for us to see the giant Sequoia trees, the biggest living things on earth. This was simply spectacular, it was like looking at six or seven Baobab trees stacked on each other to form one giant tree. Here the birding was much better….maybe because we had a local guide with us… hê hê hê hê!

Returning once more to Clovis, we returned to San Francisco the following morning to fly back home.

Overall the trip was lovely. Total new bird count for me was 37 and quite a few more for Shirlene.

The rental car was a Chev Cruz and I was duly impressed, powerful, good driving car and very economical, having used $62 of fuel for 970 miles.

I have to thank Charl and Rina for all they have done to make this trip special for us, can't wait to treat them when thay visit us next!

Please make sure to read the photo captions, it's half the story.

As always, click on the album and enjoy.

San Francisco 2013