Right before Connect Live 2018, I had the chance to travel to Sequoia National Park on @SoniaK 's trip.
I have been to many National Parks throughout the United States. When we were driving through the mountains on our way to Sequoia, I thought I knew what to expect. I did not.
As our driver, I found the passage through the mountains harrowing. The road was narrow and the views were as spectacular as the descent was steep. At the very apex was an area with significant road construction, where cars had to take turns going through one-way and then the other. Despite all my anxiousness, it was worth it.
Coming down the other side, the entry into the park was somewhat gradual. As I discovered, the further in we went, the bigger the trees became. Every time I thought I had seen the largest, we would pass another that dwarfed it.
Tunnel Log was one of the first real “tourist” stops we made. This log had a tunnel carved out of it in 1938, after the log fell across the road in 1937.
We also stopped to see General Sherman, an ancient redwood just under 275 feet tall.
What impressed me most about Sequoia National Park was not the number of trees or the size of them. It was the feeling imparted by sheltering under the enormous canopy of these ancient trees. There is a saying, “if walls could talk,” meaning that things happen when we are not around that are intriguing. I got a similar feeling from Sequoia, but it came with a sense of majesty. These trees stood, growing, through the rise and fall of governments, through wars, and across hundreds of years of history.
Just like @ErmesT 's article about the garden at Padua, people have visited these trees since a time when the only image they could capture of the place would be in the form of a drawing. People leaned against the same trees to rest hundreds of years ago. The same places we posed for pictures taken with our cell phones and posted to the internet, others posed for pictures taken on film and then mailed to family in order to share the moment.
If only these trees could talk, I can only imagine the stories they would have to tell. However, the feeling I got, was that they had been around so long that the things we found noteworthy would merely be cute to them, as they had seen so much more than the moments we found worth remembering.
This post is part of the #StateChallenge organized by @Kwiksatik and @Denise_Barlock. If you want to find out more, check out this post. You can also find other submissions by searching the #StateChallenge hashtag. There is also a virtual meet-up on California coming up which you can sign up to here!
. Only by looking at the photos you shared, one can feel the magnificent feeling that you experienced. I hope I could go there one day too. : )