We arrived in Fresno today. The sun was shining and initial impressions were that it was an ok sort of place. We were booked into the Holiday inn for 2 nights as this was a pretty good base for both National parks-Kings Canyon and Sequoia.

The hotel had recently been refurbished and looked quite nice on the face of it. It also had a gym and a sunny pool which was a bonus. Our room was large with a balcony. All sounding good so far isn't it?

We hit the gym straightaway for a good hour or so and the sat by the pool for an hour of afternoon sun. Whilst doing so I was researching where we could eat that evening and had shortlisted about 3 places in the downtown area where we were based.

After a quick change we headed out. The 9-5'ers had all left for the day by this time and it was something of a ghost town. We took a left turn into the area I had been assured was full of eating places. It soon became apparent that they were either closed or out of business. It also became apparent that we were looking slightly out of place. We did wonder whether we had inadvertently crossed the border into Mexico as all the signs were in Spanish and every person we saw looked South American in origin, not that there is anything wrong with that but we didn't get a very good vibe about the place. It felt a bit edgy. Suddenly a particularly gusty wind picked up and we found ourselves in a bit of a sandstorm. Stephen didn't have his sunglasses on him so was getting blinded. I was slightly more fortunate. A Mexican guy behind us kept laughing at us and saying "mucho gusto" or something along those lines which I take to mean very windy...yes, we know! If he had been wearing a poncho and sombrero we could have been a some dodgy Western. Sadly Stephen didn't have his Stetson with him and Roy Rogers did not come to our rescue with Trigger. Suddenly, out of the dust, Stephen spied our salvation-a casino, groan.

By this point I was famished and thought maybe there would be an eating establishment in there. We walked in past a number of stern security guards and straight into the gaming room. Suddenly all eyes were on us, me in a dress and Stephen in a shirt. We looked so out of place! It was full of Cowboy types, Chinese of course and Mexicans, predominantly all men. Needless to say we were not going to eat there, Stephen didn't even want to join one of the Blackjack games and we made a hasty retreat back to the hotel. By this point our only food option was to eat in the hotel restaurant where we were the only guests. The food was mediocre but to be honest we were just eating out of pure necessity at this point as we has hardly eaten all day.

After this we grabbed a bottle of wine from the bar and watched Fair Game (good film) in the room before attempting to get some sleep.

It soon became apparent that sleep would not come easy. It seemed that we were stuck on a corridor with drunken louts, doors were constantly banging, there was shouting in the corridor and on one occasion someone tried to get into our room. We called down to reception 3 times and they ushered security to our floor each time but still the noise continued. To make matters worse, a guy was steam cleaning the pavements outside the hotel from11.30pm to around 1am and it was making a heck of a racket.

They offered to move us but given the hour and the fact that we were all unpacked this seemed like more hassle than it was worth so we stayed put. I had 3 hours sleep, grr!

The next day I drove us to the National parks. As we climbed higher and higher in the mountains we soon became engulfed by cloud to such an extent that driving became almost impossible. Picture narrow road, sheer cliff edge, wide car and almost zero visibility. I eventually pulled over for 10 minutes to see if the cloud would lift. Stephen got out of the car and headed over to a guy on a motorbike and they had a conversation for a while about places to go and things to see. After saying goodbye to him, we continued with the drive. I literally couldn't go more than about 10mph but as suddenly as the cloud fell we found ourselves in bright sunlight and blue sky, bizarre.

We eventually arrived at Kings Canyon, stopping at the information centre to pay our fee and to pick up some maps. Trees were on the agenda again and we headed off to see the 2nd largest Tree on earth, a giant Sequoia. It was very impressive and we took a bit of a trail through the forest. Sadly we didn't have a lot of time for hiking so it was back to the car and a bit of a drive through Kings Canyon for a couple of photograph opportunities. We then drove through the Sequoia forest and into Sequoia national park, yay more trees!!

The scenery was once again amazing, snow capped mountains, Huge trees, desert like landscapes in places, pretty awesome really as you'll see from the photographs.

As we drove through I spotted some deer at the side of the road so stopped for a closer look. Most of them ran off straightaway but one stayed at the side of the road staring at us for a while before dashing off. We were pleased with the deer sighting as we hadn't seen much wildlife other than chipmunks and squirrels.

We rounded the corner and within about a mile pulled over at the side of the road as we spotted 2 cars ahead and people taking photographs. We were expecting more deer but were told they had spotted a black bear and her 2 cubs in the clearing below. We hopped out of the car and joined everyone else at the side of the road and within minutes spotted the adult bear eating grass about 100 or so yards in front of us. She didn't seem too bothered about our presence but she knew we were there as occasionally she would look right at us for a few seconds before retrieving to her food. Sadly we didn't see any cubs but it was pretty amazing seeing a bear in the wild. We also managed to get some photographs and video footage!

This was definitely the highlight of the day.

(sw writing) - We continued on in to the Sequoia national park and our second last stop was the General Sherman tree. This is the largest tree in the world (by volume). It has stopped growing up but continues to widen slightly every year to maintain it's title. Steph was mildly impressed but I thought it was really cool. I mean the diameter at the base is 11 meters!! Anyway our final stop was Moro rock where you can view 360 degree panoramic views at 6700 ft. However, as the drive up took us on narrow roads the clouds descended and at the base of the walk we could hardly see 20 meters in front of us. Still I insisted we had to walk up the 351 step track to the top just in case it cleared (and yes I counted them). The clouds did not clear, I was wrong, we drove back to the hotel...