V. A Night in Bakersfield

When we conceded that there were too many delights and not enough time to enjoy them, we skipped the redwood forest on the coast, and turned toward the giant sequoias up in the mountains; in King's Canyon.

No one ever had wanted to go directly from Santa Cruz to King's Canyon, so there are no roads that go directly from one to the other. Perhaps it is that Fresno is in between. At any rate, one zig-zags to go there.

One does not zig-zag around a Giant Sequoia. You stop for it, stare at it, and try to comprehend what it means to say that a tree is two thousand years old. Or more. More.

I know that Bristlecone pines are older, and I try to credit them for that, but I do not have to stop breathing to look at a Bristlecone. I do not become convinced, when looking at a Bristlecone that I am looking at a tree that knows something. When they look down, sometimes the Giant Sequoias notice us. Sometimes.

It may be global warming that the Sequoias ought to fear, and we have something mindless to do with that.

A long time ago, I drove a little car through one of these trees, when we were marginally more ignorant than we are now.

This old cabin is old. The logs are astoundingly durable, even in the death of the tree itself. It was a sad cabin, because it symbolized what should never happen to something older than God.

I suppose there is a time to be brutally honest, but I cannot bring myself to it, so I shall just say that we spent the night at a motel in Bakersfield. And that brought us close enough to home so that we began to think about the ache in our necks, and of our bed; our own bed!

I even remembered the code for the alarm system.

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