More Big Trees

For Memorial Day weekend, we decided to go look at more big trees in Sequoia National Park, about five hours south of San Francisco. We found that Sequoia National Park is a place that requires a great deal of patience.

First of all, like I said before, it takes at least five hours to get there. "There" means the entrance to the park. From the entrance, you drive along what feels like 100 miles of winding, two lane road, full of more switchbacks than one person can reasonably handle.

Once over the mountains, you get to the Giant Forest, where you find the largest living things on earth:

This tree took at least three thousand years to grow.

We had to sit quietly for long moments to get a picture of this varmint.

This cave took something like two million years to form.

This is Moro Rock, a massive granite outcropping that surveys the deep valley below. You have to climb 400 steps to get to the top.

And here is Roo in his more natural habitat. We were here at this lodge waiting two hours for our dinner reservation. We went exploring while we waited and found this river.

And once we ordered our meal, we waited another hour before the food came. The waitress apologized profusely, and due to our wait, we earned a free dessert. It was while eating our free chocolate cake that I realized that although this place requires a lot of patience--3000 years for a tree to grow, 400 steps to see a view, a million years for a cave to form, an hour to get dinner--it's all worth the wait. 

It was a beautiful place!

That understanding mildly lessened the annoyance when we were stopped on our way out of the park late at night in a line of traffic--a car had veered off the road and rolled over.  We just looked at the stars and waited indefinitely.