5/01/16: Michigan, Here We Come Again! (Part 4)
We set aside three-plus weeks for a driving adventure that began in Michigan on April 6, and terminated in Pasadena, California on April 13. The main reasons: to explore more of giant America, and most especially to see our extended family and their very young children.
What fun! Skylar and Megan’s two-year-old daughter, Amelia, and four-month old Luke, were a joy to be with. The family’s snug home and huge, fenced inner driveway/patio is a perfect place for the children to run and play ,and to eat meals. Amelia is learning to ride a little bike there, and we brought her a ‘Snuffy Sniff’ dog, a replica of my first cherished doggy toy, to pull around. (Snuffy, a black-spotted wooden basset hound, croaks pleasingly as he’s pulled along. Amelia’s found his gruff, rhythmic snorts to be as satisfying as I did as a toddler.)
Amelia is solicitous of her little brother. “It will be all right, Luke-y,” she’ll say gently, when he’s upset or irritated. She endearingly calls us ‘RaRaJoe’ and ‘RaRaDee.’ Luke’s wonderful, brand-new smile lights up his face. We couldn’t get enough of them.
Megan’s easy-going parents and two sisters, who live quite near, joined us for a casual Pad Thai dinner one evening outside on the patio. After Michigan’s seemingly endless winter (we left our state as it pelted down snow and sleet), dining outside each evening, especially with them, was a treat!
One evening Joe unloaded his motorcycle from the special carrier behind the van, and he and Sky roared off to explore the Pasadena area. They returned thirsty, and happy to have had the chance to fool around together on their machines.
On our last full day, with lovely weather predicted, Sky buckled us into his big Lexus and drove us to Malibu Beach, about an hour away. There we would connect with his father, Robin, who was driving down from his Santa Barbara ranch to meet us at Duke’s, a popular restaurant built on- and slightly over- a smallish cliff above the beach.
A long line of cheery, casually dressed folks were standing outside in the early afternoon sun, and milling around in the lobby, waiting for seats to open up. We immediately resigned ourselves to at least an hour’s wait. I’d amuse myself watching goggle-eyed tourists snap pictures of movie stars’ beach homes, racked up tightly along this Malibu cliff on both sides of Duke’s.
Then, something amazing happened! Robin, (a handsome man a little younger than Joe and me, who resembles Robert Redford without the warts) hugged us all, then motioned us inside. What??? Baffled, confused, then incredulous, all of us followed a waiter past the long line of waiting people, and were immediately seated at the best big table in the house, without waiting a single minute! Robin’s eyes twinkled. He’d definitely made this happen.
The view was stunning. Floor-to-ceiling windows showed the complacent ocean lapping gently at the sunny beach below us. Blue sky and fluffy clouds capped a glorious scene. Wow!
It took Joe and me awhile to order, as we couldn’t tear our gazes from the view....
The children were wonderful. Amelia gazed out the windows as she ate, or played peek-a-boo close to us when she’d finished. Little Luke, having eyes only for Mother Megan, was content to nurse, then doze. All of us enjoyed Duke’s delicious food. I felt like a pampered movie star as waiters hovered, ready to do whatever it took to make our experience a memorable one....
The next morning it was time to head home to Michigan. Oh, it was hard to say goodbye!
A special site, highly rated on my bucket list, blunted the sadness. We’d visit California’s Sequoia National Park on the way back. I’d seen photos of those stunning, cinnamon-red-barked giants all my life. Here was our chance to experience them!
We left Pasadena at the crack of dawn on Sunday, when L.A traffic was very light. By 1:00 p.m. we’d hit the tiny town of Lindsay, about 18 miles south of the park. Just outside of town was a Super 8. Hooray! We quickly moved our stuff into it and then, to Bryn’s chagrin, piled back into the van again. She looked at us quizzically: Are we really driving away again, Boss? I scratched her ears and told her she could manage another 50 minutes or so... It was two o’clock p.m.
Off we went, through miles of flat land that hosted hundreds of thousands of beautiful emerald-green citrus trees. Their astringent, citrus-y scent was nearly overpowering when we rolled down the windows. Each carefully tended, perfect tree stood about six feet high, and bore so much fruit the branches bent; ripe oranges littered the ground. The lush orchards stretched on and on.
Then, I noticed something odd. One huge squared section looked to be enjoying excellent health. But every orange tree in the next huge section was pale-leafed; in fact, every one, to my practiced eye, looked ill. No fruit hung from branches. And, in another giant section a bit further along, every tree- every single one – was completely leafless. Raincloud-gray.
Stone dead.
A terrible Asian insect-borne virus has struck California’s heartland. The first diseased orange tree was found in a private garden in LA about five years ago. Investigators, who’d been testing citrus trees for years for signs of the dreaded killer they knew would come eventually, were horrified, but still clung to hope. In all the years they’d been scouring the southern California landscape, only this one tree in this one lady’s yard was infected and dying; perhaps they’d caught it in time.
But, no. Insects fly where food and optimal breeding grounds exist, and now, in 2016, thousands of the citrus industry’s plump orange, lemon and grapefruit trees (this bug’s dream come true) are beginning to die. It’s a budding, industrial strength calamity. (Read the Wall Street Journal’s article, written April 15, for more details.) Some experts predict that orchards growing happily in the vast, sun-drenched San Fernando Valley may already be harboring the disease; they will likely be struck down within two to five years. We drove past section after endless section of uprooted, leaf-naked, gray trees, a stark testament to the lethal power of an imported little brown insect.
Gigantic, super-thin nets were carefully spread over other neighboring orchard sections, reaching almost to the ground- a Herculean feat - to try to discourage the bug, but it can simply land on the ground near the trunks and then scurry up to the branches. These creatures adapt quickly.
There is no cure.
Scientists are working frantically to find one.
The huge Sierra Nevada Mountains framed this life-and-death scene as we drove along the valley’s ruler-straight, paved, two-lane road.
Gradually, the terrain rose as we moved deeper into them.
One thousand feet. The road, named The General Highway (to honor The behemoth General Sherman Sequoia), began to curve just a little.
Two thousand feet. It curved a lot more as we began to climb in earnest. The National Park’s entrance gate appeared. (Rangers waved us through; all National Park entrance fees had been waived this week.)
Three thousand feet. More frequent, sharper curves began.
Four thousand feet. Turns morphed to the hairpin sort. Signs cautioned: SLOW!
The spectacular scenery- sheer cliffs, massive, snow-capped peaks and blazing sun, not to mention another disconcerting sign that read: Snowchains may be necessary, as sudden, violent snowstorms are not unusual- competed for our attention.
Constant turns, with no barriers, were beginning to give me the jitters.
Five thousand feet. Snow lay along the road’s verges and blanketed some parts of the steep mountainside nearby. Would this journey ever end? Now constant, slow-to-almost zero m.p.h. turns made us blanche. There was nowhere to pull over. There was only UP.
Put bluntly, we could make no mistakes. Not one. We had to trust that no soul coming down the mountain was even a little inebriated. This was a ‘no booze- not even a sniff-’ road. One fender bump, or one guy taking a truly tight curve too wide- or fast- and we could tip off the edge and plunge a mile straight down.
Six thousand feet. Still, no hint of about how much longer it would be. But Wait! There were two giant Sequoias- oh- and more over there, scattered among other huge evergreen trees that weren’t Sequoias. We dared to toss an occasional glance their way.
Surely this will end soon, we muttered, grateful our gas tank was full.
But no.
We kept moving, higher and higher.
Slow eons later-
Seven thousand feet. Super-tight turns continued with monotonous regularity as we crawled ever higher. People coming down the mountain tended to cross over the solid yellow line. They were as nervous as we were about edges, and so claimed more space to maneuver than they should have. Unnerving. There wasn’t room for wandering even a little...
Now more massive Sequoias (that love living practically in the clouds) came into view, rising from the steeply canted forest floor: two immense trunks nearly made contact with our van’s side.
Then, AT LAST, a little sign:
General Sherman Parking Area –1/4 Mile.
Winding along that final stretch, up and up that half-dark, narrow road, seemed to take years, probably because we were looking so hard. Inside this forest in the late afternoon, desperate to reach our destination before dark, we noted hundreds of towering evergreen trees and Sequoia giants sporadically lit by fleeting sunbeams: their shadows were rapidly lengthening.
We couldn’t stay long.
Then, at about 7400 feet, we came upon a nearly filled parking area tucked into a wide, forested area, well away from sheer drops. There were about two dozen people sitting under magnificent trees preparing to leave, or hike.
We’d finally arrived.
The top of the world was sunny, yet cold enough to shiver in light shade. My lungs knew we were high. I thought: these Sequoias are about as far away from civilization as it is possible to be. And still, most had been logged.
But now, thank heaven, the rest are forever safe.
Our climb had gobbled well over an hour, and there was still a decent hike ahead if we wanted to see the largest living thing on the planet. We walked Bryn around in the immediate parking area, settled her again in the van with a Bully stick chew treat, bundled up, and started off.
4:30 sunbeams peeked between fluffy clouds, illuminating the forest’s cinnamon-red Sequoias. It made a fantastic, ethereal picture. The scent of pine and moist earth permeated the air. Patchy snow covered many areas. The path to General Sherman wound around and past other enormous cedar evergreens scattered around amid many huge Sequoias.
We continued deeper into the Primeval Forest.
After about 15 minutes, There It Was, another thirty yards down and to the right- the General Sherman Sequoia, standing with brethren nearly as massive.
We leaned against a redwood fence and tried to look up without falling backward.
My God.
Sometimes, there is nothing more to be said.
We simply looked, and looked, and tried to comprehend.
A single bird sang, somewhere very high. Sunbeams playfully highlighted narrow bits of forest, accentuating the burnished red bark of these glorious natural structures.
Time is irrelevant here. There is titanic immensity- and profound peace; perfect quiet and incredible age.
Oblivious to the rise and fall of religions, civilizations, world wars, mediaeval plagues- and (until recently) axes, these magnificent trees, high, high above a mad, mad, mad, mad world full of sound and fury...have grown over countless centuries, in isolated majesty, deep inside this beautiful virgin forest.
Things to ponder:
Sequoias (proper name: Sequoiadendron Giganteum) just keep growing, undeterred by fire, climate changes, and fierce winters. They aren’t ever ‘old.’ Only ‘mature.’ Death comes to them only through some rare external event.
Two lines from one of Emily Dickinson’s poems come to mind:
The [Forest] held but just Ourselves-
And Immortality-
What might slow them down?
-Well, when one grows to above 275 feet, lightning usually can’t resist striking its top. And even then, in flames, it carries on, unworried. A fire-scorched Sequoia will completely restore its damaged area, given time.
-A mega-mountain wind, or its own massive weight, might finally topple it. (Imagine the sound of a Giant Sequoia falling.)
And even then, it carries on. Sprouts soon emerge and grow vigorously....
Facts:
-The General Sherman is the largest known living single stem tree on Planet Earth.
-Its bark is three feet thick.
-This tree contains 52,500 + cubic feet of wood, and that measurement expands every year.
(In just one year an average mature giant Sequoia adds enough wood to its trunk to make a sixty-foot tall, three-foot-diameter oak tree.)
-It is 275 feet tall (and yes, fire-scorched, but mending well, thank you), possesses a girth of 102.6 feet at ground level, and weighs in at a staggering 2.7 million pounds. That’s roughly equivalent to 15 adult blue whales, or 10 diesel-electric train locomotives, or 25 military battle tanks.
-It may be close to 3,000 years old. No one can confirm this estimate unless it falls- and people still exist to count the rings.
-Sequoias are self-pollinating. Seeds form only after the trees are hundreds of years old.
They’ll also regrow- as I mentioned before- from sprouts.
-Sequoias have no taproot. Instead, shallow roots (only about four or five feet deep), spread out over perhaps five acres, in 90,000+ cubic feet of soil. This, notes the National Park Service, is an astonishingly delicate foundation for an above-ground structure that can rise twenty to twenty-five stories, and weigh as much as a small ocean freighter.
-These mature trees drink thousands of gallons of water daily, obtained from mist, fog, rain, and the melting Sierra Nevada snowpack.
-Branches, and their lush greenery, grow well at about 150 feet up the trunk, where it’s sunnier.
We moved closer, and Joe took a few photos. Honestly, though, the General really needs to be seen personally, to fully appreciate it.
Finally, as evening began to fall in earnest (which happens early in the mountains) we reluctantly hiked back to the van, moving briskly up, up the steep trail for a good while, breathing hard in the high, thin air.
A sense of profound awe, and deep peace, came with us.
Bryn greeted us happily. We let her stretch her legs, then apprehensively began our long descent down to the valley floor. Hairpin turns began in intense sunlight that changed instantly to deep shadow as we crept around them. Visually, it was hard to adjust. We turned and turned, endlessly pirouetting down, down, steeply down. The scenery made us gasp in disbelief whenever we dared to snatch a look. But it wasn’t enjoyed for more than a millisecond, as Joe couldn’t tear his eyes away from the road. Neither could I. My body language vividly demonstrated how tense I was.
Please, I mumbled to our van’s brakes, don’t fail us, now...
60+ minutes later we found ourselves on flat, straight road again: what a relief.
Joe wondered if the people still up there in the clouds realized how dark it would be when they finally left. I couldn’t imagine navigating that mountain in the pitch darkness, or in a rain or snowstorm, which could happen at any time, or- horrors- in an iffy clunker.
The sun set in a vast, magnificent sky streaked with purple, pink, pale blue and gold. It was now well past 8 o’clock. Heavens! We’d certainly underestimated the amount of time necessary to tackle that mountain.
Joe, especially, was tired. He’d done a great job.
In another thirty minutes we’d be hotel-home, and it couldn’t come soon enough.
We wouldn’t make that journey again. Once was enough.
But it had been well worth the effort. For an enchanted half hour, in contemplative silence, we’d stood close to The Supreme Monarch and the giants that surrounded it, and shared the same pure mountain air.
It was a humbling, transformative experience.
To have witnessed such innocent, ageless Majesty still makes me tearful.
