Her gratitude led her to fly over to our home. We were very pleased to entertain her for about nine days. We decided to show her the best of both Californias, the wild and the urban. We chose Yosemite Park and San Francisco as reprentatives of these two alternatives.
After a good night's sleep following her rather exhausting flight, we rented a car and drove to a motel in Oakdale, just outside the south entrance to Yosemite National Park.
The next morning we drove over a beautiful road lined with pines and residual snow that had not completely melted. We entered the south entrance and immediately saw the sign to the Mariposa Grove of the Big Trees!
This road's elevation is around 5000 feet as I remember. It is late spring and most of the snow has melted. It is lined with magnificent trees and being close to the snow line, some snow still remains. Being from North Dakota, this is as close to snow as I care to be, even for brief contacts.
These trees are big.
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These trees are BIG.
It is difficult to appreciate just how big they are. Here is where one of them meets the ground.
Apparently the roots of the Sequoia sequoia are very shallow, particularly for such a large tree. And people walkig on them can damage them and could evemtually even kill the tree. So please stay twenty feet away from the trunks. It is OK to have someone walk up there for a picture but when you are just looking, say back a bit to preserve these surface roots.
The trunks are huge, easily ten feet across, that's over thirty feet around!
This shows you just how big they really are. Loraine is standing by
one that has a base at least ten feet in diameter. Even this picture does not deliver the complete
impact these trees make on you.
Yes, you have to visit them yourself. And I hope you will!
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