Oh dear, time's going by so fast.
As expected, we bade a sad
farewell to lovely Oregon this morning and came back into California
(also lovely - and we definitely appreciate the redwood state parks
being open - even if the Nationals do prove to be shutdown).
A few
redwood facts of what we saw today : name - sequoiadendron giganteum; a
cone is the size of an olive and a seed the size of a tomato seed; I
don't think there's an average height and girth but the two to which
most visitors seemed to flock (leaving the others free for us to admire -
they're ALL pretty huge, after all) were the "Big Tree" (21ft/6.6m
diameter, 68ft/21m circumference and 304ft/92m tall) and
the-one-you-can-stand-inside-with-your-arms-out which is...about as big
as the pic below. It's hard to capture how vast and majestic they are
and how small they make you feel but the parks weren't too busy so it
was easy to stop and enjoy a bit of wonder and silence.
Amazing also to be able to drive very quickly from the
shade and peace of the trees back to the Pacific. California has its
share of spectacular standing stones too, including some weird and wonderful shapes (and all the better against a
bright blue sky) and the weather continues to improve the further south
we go. There were also some impressive ones as we left Oregon.
And just as the day was ending, a closer encounter with some elk (albeit casually grazing in the middle of some village grassland, so not exactly wild!)
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