March 22nd through April 5th, 2026
The Central Valley of California is known for many things. It's a huge space, growing an astounding amount of fruit, vegetables, and nuts. And it's home to some amazing national parks -- you know that's our favorite thing. So, we were really looking forward to it.
We checked into our site on the Sacramento River, at a place where there wasn't much water yet in March. There were trees and grass, and the owners were lovely. However, it was across the river from a lumber mill that made crazy noises almost all the time, and next door to a motor speedway. So, it was rarely quiet, but it was still nice.
Unfortunately, we had an appointment to take the motor home to a shop in Fresno right after we checked in to the campground. We spent a single night there, left the trailer and dog fencing, and went to the shop. We had a few things that needed some attention, but the big thing was the refrigerator. It had stopped making ice and nothing was very cold anymore. A repairman from a month before told us it was dying, but it was under warranty. The replacement fridge was ready to go. These are fairly simple things to organize, usually, but not if you have a motor home:
- The fridge would take weeks to ship so we had to plan it in advance with a shop that would hold onto something that big for a while for us, waiting for us to get there.
- The old and new fridges would need to have doors removed and could only go in and out through the dining room window. The windshield was too expensive, and sometimes it doesn't go well anyway.
- It would need a forklift and skilled people to do the work.
- We couldn't stay in our home when the work was being done.
The shop managed to coordinate things well and do the work in one day, so we were able to sleep in it while we were there for three days. During the days, Monica worked in the waiting room and Margot kept Lacey entertained. We are fairly used to this life, and then we had a working fridge!
We enjoyed the rest of the week at the campground, and then we had a busy weekend. First, we went to Yosemite National Park. We drove to the park on a two-lane mountain road to where there was a long, slow line of cars in front of us waiting to get into the park. It took a couple hours, just sitting in traffic. But then we got in and it was gorgeous.
We really like the smaller, less popular national parks. Yosemite was beautiful but very busy. We had to circle the parking areas for long periods to find parking, and every scenic stop was packed with cars and people. The visitor center was mostly about shopping -- there were no videos to watch or places to learn more about the park. We were really happy we did the trip but we were also really happy to head back home.
The next day we headed to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park. The roads in these mountain-filled parks were often still closed due to snow, but we were thrilled to find out the connecting road between Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park was open. We were prepared to do a long drive to get to both parks, so this was fantastic news.
We were expecting more crazy lines and packed parking areas like what we found in Yosemite, but we were happy to find much smaller crowds and no real wait to get into the park. And the trees were AMAZING!
We bought a ton of clothing and other stuff because we fell so in love with the sequoias. They are huge, and so big around, and you can't really explain it or photograph it very well. It's something you have to see in person.
Though Sequoia and Kings Canyon are two, separate national parks, they are up against each other and seem like one, large park. The drive between the two parks goes through sequoia groves and through other forest land, and that was lovely. Then the Kings Canyon side had still more big trees. We could have visited the park again, and it ended up being a real highlight for us out of all of the national parks we've been to. So cool.
The Central Valley was really a nice place to hang out. The people were all very nice, and the pace was a bit more relaxed. We really enjoyed our stay, but we soon headed off to the Bay Area for more adventures.
