Pink Jasmine – smell so sweet
Purple in Green
Up close to a trimmed Palm
Yellow Ball Flower
Baskets
Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks
Those above are Sequoia trees, the largest trees in the world. They are incredible. Incredible.
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks offer so much beauty. The Sequoia trees themselves are amazing. They grow stunningly tall at over 280 feet, though they are not the tallest trees on Earth. The tallest are the Coast Redwood tress along the coast of California with one measured at over 380 feet tall. However, these Sequoia trees on the Sierra Nevada Range in California are taller than most trees and are additionally the largest trees by total mass on all of Earth; they are massive and make adult humans look puny beside them. They can have trunks with a circumference over 100 feet. Also, they grow very old; over 2500 years old.
It’s not just the Sequoia’s that are beautiful in this wonderful place. There are other trees, and rocks, and creatures, and weather, and so much more.
This is an overall beautiful place. I like staring “into” the above picture quite a bit and still it does not compare to the air and view in front of me when I took the photo.
Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon National Park have separate names and entrances from back in the old days when they started as separate locations. In time, land added to the parks connected their borders. Technically two separate parks, they are managed jointly today.
Up close with a Sequoia. These are breathtaking trees and none of my photos captured the grandness of them though I feel close to this one through the above photo.
Fluffy Clouds
Pole and Wire
Split Tree
John Muir’s House
John Muir himself planted this redwood tree about 120 years ago. This is his home in Martinez on the San Francisco Bay. I was happy to learn how close it is and happy to find that you may walk around the property and throughout the entire home at leisure here during open hours.
A statue of John Muir in the visitor center on the property of Muir’s home, now a National Historic Site maintained by the U.S. National Park Service.
Muir has an impressive story you can read about elsewhere. For a few reference facts, he co-founded the Sierra Club, wrote numerous naturalist books, and played important rolls in the creation and protection of Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks. If you can imagine, John Muir took then President Theodore Roosevelt on a three day back county camping trip to convince him to make Yosemite into a National Park. It worked. I find it amazing to imagine a time when a president would agree and be able to go off on foot with a naturalist to just camp and be in nature for three days out in the back country. It is a pretty fascinating form of lobbying.
John Muir himself use to ring this very bell from this cupola above his home to let the workers on his orchard know to come in for lunch. Today, you are welcomed to go on up and ring the bell as much as you like! Of course, they keep the windows closed now. Not that there are acres and acres of orchards anymore to call in the workers from. From the windows of the cupola you can now see part of the town and a 7-11 across the street from Muir’s home. Times change and so it is all the more wonderful that this part of the property is preserved.
Each bedroom had it’s own sink.
The view out the front window onto the porch.
It’s neat to imagine John Muir also using this door knob to enter his front door as I use it.
Part of the Muir property includes this historic two story adobe house called the Martinez Adobe built in 1849 as part of the Martinez land grant.
These are the thickest, and presumably the oldest, grape vines I have ever seen up close in person.
Door knob to the Martinez Adobe where John Muir spent plenty of time visiting his eldest daughter and her family who lived there.
Visiting and exploring this park and historical site was a treat. Walking around, touching and appreciating nature, thinking, and absorbing a part of a glimpse into another time in our history was wonderful. Muir’s life is fairly fascinating and intriguing to learn about. To walk around and within his home was special.