9-14-16 All Along And Kings Canyon National Park, Visalia CA (Country Manor Mobile Home Community)

It happened.  Everyone left.  We are traveling with no companions.  

We drove south to Visalia to Country Manor Mobile Home Community that also welcomes RVs.  It is a lovely, quiet park with ample space.  

We even met the mayor of the park.  Loretta Livingston, age 83, greeted us even before we were settled on the site.  After sharing that Glen's grandfather's name was Livingston we learned that her husband's sister wrote a book "this" thick on the Livingston family.  Loretta was hungry for conversation and finally wished us a good trip, and be careful.

We drove the long  (emphasis on long) scenic route about two and half hours of curvy (big emphasis on curvy) road to Kings Canyon National Park.  

Let's discuss trees.  Sequoias and redwoods are not the same tree.  They grow in different environments.  Redwoods like the coolness and mistiness of the coastline.  Sequoias are in the high elevations of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

We continue to be in the drought stricken area of  California.  The countryside surrounding the sequoias is not particularly appealing.  Many of the other trees are weakened by the drought and dying.  Pines are weakened by the drought and are unable resist a bark beetle infestation and are dying in large numbers.

Just a few more facts about the trees:
Giant Sequoia                                                 California Coast Redwood
   311' --------------   Height    --------------------   367.8'              
   3200   ---------  Age      ----------------------     2000 years
up to 2.7 million lbs  -----  Weight     ------------   1.6 million lbs
up to 31" thick    -----       Bark       --------       to 12" thick
to 40' diameter    -----        Bases        -----             22' diameter
shaped like a chicken's egg --  Cones     ----        Shaped like a large olive

That's your botany lesson for the day.

Here's some pictures of the Giant Sequoia.  Evidently the National Park Service likes to give them names.  They look alike, but differ in sizes.

The stump remnant of a sequoia cut in the late 1800's.

The General Grant tree is second or third largest tree in world ; has lived nearly twenty centuries; discovered in 1862; as tall as a 27 -story building

The top end of the Fallen Monarch; fell in early 1800's.  Two brothers lived in the fallen tree trunk for two years before building their cabin in the mid 1860's.  

Another tall view of the General Sherman

(L) Lightning Tree (R) Missouri Tree (no details given on why it is called "Missouri".

Cones are egg shaped and sized.  Seed inside cone is the size of an oat flake.

Glen at the root end of the "Fallen Monarch" see picture #3

Squint your eyes.  Glen is near our white pick up.  This group of sequoias is called "The Happy Family".

Glen is in the middle of the two center trees with his arms outstretched.  "The Happy Family" group of trees.

I am across the parking lot taking the picture.  You can see how tiny Glen is.  I still couldn't get the very tippy top of the trees in the pictures.

This area surrounding Visalia and Toulare County is the "nation's leading dairy producer and home to over 250 different crops.  Above are oranges.

Can you figure out what these are?

Here's the trees.

Here's the fruit!  It is an olive!

Is it haze? smoke? smog? the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains

Toward the coast/west: still hazy, smoky, smoggy.

It was a great afternoon.  We are blessed to be able to "see the USA"! Remember that commercial?