Lichen my earth science jokes? You’ve been a great audience. I’m here through December.
-Jenni
After four months of nothing but desert terrain (rocks, coyote, sand, cacti, rocks, lizards, rocks and WIND, oh my the wind) the kids were really pining for some lush evergreen vistas (rimshot). Our route from the desert southwest took us to the Sierra Nevada range in California and our first stop was Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Any reticence I had about leaving my beloved desert evaporated (har har) within twelve seconds of stepping out of the truck and into our campground in the park. The song birds were singing, the air smelled like Christmas and there are still excellent rocks for everyone to climb on, something I was afraid the kids might take for granite (awesome!). This is also the first spot we’ve camped where all food, indeed every single item with a scent, must be stored in a bear locker 24/7. Many of the places we’ve already been are home to black bears, but sightings in those places are rare even if when campers with food are abundant. Here on the other hand, if you leave something out at any time of the day there just might be trouble a bruin (oh! I am on a roll here). Sequoia and Kings Canyon are technically two separate parks, but everyone just refers to them like they are one and it quickly became clear why. Over our two full days of exploring we crossed the border from one to the other (and also into/out of Sequoia National Forest and Jennie Lakes Wilderness Area) approximately 148 times. Though the park-bagging nerd in me wanted to log them as two, I lost track of which park we were in quickly and gave up. In a place dedicated to trees of an other-worldly scale, one could envision an ad that reads, "Sequoia National Park...keeping chiropractors in business since 1890." Indeed, we spent most of our time walking around staring straight up. My wide angle lens saw more action in one day than it normally gets in a whole week and I developed a nice kink in my neck. Now, I'm proficient at tripping on flat surfaces even when I watch where I'm going. Toss in a camera stuck to my face like some sort of Borg accessory and you have the perfect storm. It's nothing short of miraculous that I didn't face plant in the dirt. That's a sequoia cone. Tiny. We learned a lot about giant sequoias. They are heavily dependent on fire for their reproduction. Sequoia cones will only open to release their seeds when temperatures reach 167 degrees F. Fire clears other growth from the forest floor giving seeds a spot to germinate and eliminates competition for nutrients. It also opens the forest canopy to allow sufficient sunlight to reach the seedlings. I'll go out on a limb here (excellent!) and admit something: I hugged a sequoia. We met a woman in the forest who called herself a tree hugger (not kidding) and claimed that when you touch a sequoia its energy will cause your blood pressure to rise. That doesn’t exactly sound like a good thing to me and I did not believe her anyway but they do look more huggable than your average tree because their bark is kind of soft and teddy bear colored. You can’t get your arms around one of these things, at least not the mature ones, so I just leaned up against a sunny patch of bark and waited. My blood pressure did not rise but I did contemplate the wonder of a God who would delight in making a tree to be the largest living organism on earth. I thought of how most of these giants were alive when Christ walked the earth, the storms they have weathered, the kingdoms that have come and gone in their lifetime. A young John Muir might have walked right by this very tree decades ago and it would not have looked much different then. No, I didn’t feel anything happen to my blood pressure, but I did feel as I always do out in the wilderness: much closer to God and to the reasons that drove John Muir to spend most of his life out here. I bet he was a really fungi (could NOT resist). Lichen my earth science jokes? You’ve been a great audience. I’m here through December. -Jenni
T.
5/18/2013 05:32:27 am
Smiling. I miss yo rim-shot self!! I woulda hugged them too. :0) Speaking of dorky jokes and photos, you would not believe what I found on my computer today from our Cali weekend last year...I texted it to you. Try not to wet your pants ( I almost did). Now I know what happens when a photographer says to a writer, "Hey, hold my camera for a minute please."
Jeff Schrum
5/19/2013 04:32:45 am
Beleaf it or not, this was my favorite post yet. "Fungi" -- classic. :-) Comments are closed.
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