Greetings folks! The other day I woke up thinking about this post from 2016 (before Undertow was published), so I thought I’d post it again, mainly for more recent subscribers to this blog who missed it. It’s about one of my favorite trips. Enjoy!
The President of California
You didn’t know California had a president? It does. Ever since I read an article about a mammoth sequoia in California, I had to see it—the tree’s name is The President. Its enormity, juxtaposed with its grace, attracted me. Its endurance drew me to it. The photo, accompanying the article in the Dec. 2012 issue of National Geographic, captured the evergreen’s resilience and compelled me to see that tree in person.
Here’s a link to Wiki info: The President – Giant Sequoia
The tree poster
A gift! National Geographic included a 28″ poster of this 3,200 year-old sequoia tree. The photograph, taken in a snowy winter, shows the broccoli-shaped crown and underling branches frosted in white like a gingerbread house. Dangling from its branches are scientists in red and yellow outfits, secured in safety harnesses, measuring its every inch and taking samples of cones, bark, sap, and other tree sorts of things they want for their research.
The trip
Amazingly, a chance to see The President came my way. It lives in the Sequoia National Park in northern California, so when my husband, Hoyt, told me that the 2014 annual conference for a professional association he belongs to would be held in Concord, CA not too far from The President, we jumped at the chance to go.
At the time, Hoyt was on the board of The International Parapsychological Association, so he “really needed” to go. He created another amazing trip itinerary (we’ve been all over the world) that included visits to San Francisco, Muir Woods (the tallest redwoods in the world), Concord, Napa Valley and Sonoma Valley (mmm we had good wines!), Yosemite (3 nights in the lodge there), Kings Canyon (where the General Grant tree lives, which is the national Christmas tree), and Sequoia Nat’l Park where the President resides, as does General Sherman, the largest sequoia in the world.
Two lovely weeks of sunshine and cooler temps out there in California were a gift, although the drought all over the state was sad, and the Napa earthquake cast a terrible shadow on our trip. We had stayed in Napa for two nights before heading up to Yosemite. Three days after leaving Napa, to our shock and dismay, the earthquake struck.
Regardless of the earth’s shivers and shakes, if you ever get the chance to visit California’s spectacular national parks, we can’t recommend them enough, as well as the wine country of the Napa and Sonoma Valleys.
One disappointment: I had wanted to see a bear in the mountains, but none showed up where we went. That’s probably a good thing …
See you next time!
Your writer on the wing,
Charlene
