Sequoia and King's Canyon

We are blessed to live close to two spectacular national parks. For father's day I requested that we stay for one night in Fresno and then drive up highway 180 into King's Canyon National Park, and then down the road to Sequoia National Park. This trip became a kind of preview of the grand national parks road trip that I am chronicling here.

In these two majestic parks, one finds the mighty Sequoia trees. One of the joys of parenthood is that you are presented with the honor of showing your children the world, of introducing them to wonders they have never seen, and could not have imagined. 

Dimensions of General Grant

There are encounters in this world that make us feel small. They make us feel that way because we tend to measure our lives in terms of years (or at least accomplishments that outlive us) and grandeur (how "large" we can make our lives). What about a living thing that outlives us by 2000 or more years and whose physical stature is so impressive that it ranks as the world largest living thing? Here is a tree that was around before America, and before Christianity. Here is something taller than a 25 story building. Here is something that evokes the elusive virtue of true humility. In the presence of "General Sherman," we understand what Sergeant Joyce Kilmer said in his famous poem, "Poems are made by fools like me; but only God can make a tree." We can build buildings that soar far beyond 25 stories, but they aren't alive! Their glory compared to this tree is like the glory of a candle to that of the sun. 

I hope that you will take in the acute joy of witnessing the eyes of a child at first beholding something so immense, so real, so simply breathtaking, as General Sherman. When you do, you get to see the beauty of the world with fresh eyes. 

General Grant, The Third Largest Living Thing on Planet Earth

General Sherman and Me and My Girls
275 ft. tall,  103 ft. circumference,  37 ft. diameter