California -- Part 3

For those of you that are jumping into the story from here you might want to read from the beginning here.
Monday morning we got up and drove the 40 minutes to Sequoia National Park. I had never been there and neither had Leslie. When we were planning the trip we saw that Sequoia NP was close so we started doing some research so we knew what we wanted to see.

We both thought that Sequoia was where you could drive through the tree trunk. Through the research we realized that the tree trunk drive was in Yosemite NP, north of where we were going to be. Sequoia is home to the General Sherman.

The General Sherman sequoia tree in Giant Forest holds the title as the largest living specimen on earth. It is 275 feet (83 m) tall with a massive trunk 36.5 feet (11.1 m) in diameter and 109 feet (33 m) in circumference at the base. Even more remarkable is the fact that at a point 120 feet (36 m) in the air the trunk of General Sherman is still 17 feet (5 m) in diameter.

It is estimated to have a volume of 52,500 cubic ft. (1,486.6 cubic meters). In lumberman's terms, this one tree probably contains 630,000 board feet of lumber. (A board foot is 12 in. x 1 in. plank that is one foot long.) That's enough to build 120 average-sized houses. In fact, a single giant sequoia may contain more wood than is found on several acres of some of the finest virgin timberland in the Pacific Northwest. The trunk of General Sherman alone weighs nearly 1,400 tons. That is roughly equivalent to 15 adult blue whales, 10 diesel-electric train locomotives, or 25 military battle tanks!

The tree is actually really big. It was pretty cool to learn that there was a 1 in 30 million chance that it would grow to be that big. The ranger said that the tiny seed fell in the perfect dirt, in the perfect weather, got the perfect amount of rain and sunlight and was not eaten by the animal life. What a sight to see.

Here are a few more pics of General Sherman and the surrounding trail to the tree.

At the Giant Sequoia Forrest Visitor Center, there is another big tree called the Sentinel Tree.

Here are a few pictures from it.

This is a line on the ground that represents the Sentinel tree. I thought it looked cool so I took a picture of it.

These are a few pictures of us in the park and riding the shuttle to the General Sherman tree.

All in all we had a good time at Sequoia NP. However, by the end of the day we (and by we I mean Kendrick) were ready to go. Plus we had a 4+ hours drive to Leslie's dad's house in Cypress.

The drive took us on the 5, which runs right through my mission. I couldn't help but laugh as I passed exits that I had taken many times before, but hadn't thought about for 3 years. I had called my FAVORITE family from my mission -- the Keiths from Burbank -- to let them know that we were coming through town and I that I wanted to stop to say and introduce Kendrick to them.

Jennifer informed me that they were moving to Indiana within the week. WHAT!?!?

It was a good thing that we went on this trip when we did, or I would have been very frustrated not being able to see them.
We got to Burbank around 7 p.m. and gave Kendrick a much needed break from the car. He loved being held by Jennifer and playing with a water bottle with the Keith's youngest daughter Regan.

It was great to see them. I of course told them about the blog so ... ... I hope the move went well for you guys and don't forget to let me know when you are coming to put Amanda into BYU.

From there is was short drive to Cypress (kinda by Knott's Berry Farm) where Leslie's dad had already set up the pop-up trailer for us. What a guy huh?

*** Look for more on the trip soon ***