We Are as Grasshoppers in Their Eyes OR What's the Fixation on Vicky

Today we went down to Humboldt Redwood State Park and drove the "Avenue of the Giants."  It is a 31 mile section of old, two lane US Highway 101 that winds its way through numerous old growth Redwood Groves.  Of the 31 miles fully 25 of them are through actual Redwood Groves.  I'm going to just put a bunch of pictures of the road through the forest to give you a touch of the sense of how overwhelming it is to be in the midst of miles and miles of monster Redwood.  Here you go (I'll be back with more at the end of your "drive.")

Hi!, Your drive is over and you're now ready to "Walk among the Giants."  

Prepare to feel dwarfed, awed and overwhelmed.  In many of the pictures below Irene or I are standing in the picture to give you a sense of perspective:

ABOVE: You see many trees that have fallen.  They are being "reclaimed" by the forest: slugs, moss, ferns and sometimes other trees are using the fallen tree as nutrients for their own growth

ABOVE:  Look REALLY closely, Irene is standing a just to the right 

of the tree in the middle of the photograph

ABOVE:  From the roots, this tree had to have been about 16-18 feet MINIMUM in diameter when it came crashing down.  Jim is somewhat in front of it making him look taller in reference to the tree and he is 6'2" tall.

ABOVE: Irene is standing in front of the "Founders Tree."  Below are its "vital statistics."  Please notice the height - 346.1 FEET TALL.  To give you some perspective - a football field is 100 yard long - That is 300 FEET.  Each end zone is another 10 yards deep - another 30 FEET.  So, this tree is as tall as 1 FOOTBALL FIELD is long PLUS 1 1/2 of the end zones too!!

ABOVE: Also, notice that you have to shinny up 190.4 feet (from your goal line to the to your opponents 37 yard line) to reach the first branch on this tree.  OH, this is a tall one, but 35 feet short of the TALLEST redwood.

2 Pictures ABOVE:  Irene standing INSIDE a burned out tree.  This tree is still quite alive!  Every year it put forth it little "Redwood leaves." This is the result of a natural fire.

ABOVE: Sometime relatively recently this tree "fell down and went BOOM!"  Notice that the wood where it's been cut is still very "reddish."  Over the years as it oxides these cuts will turn dark brown. This tree is about 7 feet and diameter at this point.

ABOVE 2 Pictures:  A 9 foot in diameter tree that has fallen.

OK, so now you are ready to see the "Dyerville Giant" that fell in 1991.  It was a very big tree.  Over 370 feet tall (a football field, both end zones and a little bit more in height).  The Dyerville Giant registered on local seismographs as it fell to the ground people a mile away thought that a train had crashed.

ABOVE:  This shows the "root ball" of the Dyerville Giant.  About 4 feet of it can't be seen because it is below the ground level where Jim is standing.  You can see it looks to be about another 2 "Jim's" high.  That would be Jim + 2 Jims + 4 feet more or about 22 feet in diameter at the base.

You'll notice that the trees that have fallen over don't go very deep into the ground.  Redwoods do NOT have a "Tap Root" like most trees.  They rely on growing their limbs to "balance" themselves as they grow.  First off, they don't grow where there is a lot of top soil and trying to penetrate solid granite is a non-starter.  Secondly, they grow where it is VERY moist (the coastline of Northern California) where there is typically a LOT of rainfall so the roots don't need to go "deep" to find water).

ABOVE: Strictly an attempt to show much of the length of the Dyerville Giant on the ground.

Below are a couple of interesting pictures.  What happens when one 200 foot plus Redwood falls at an acceleration rate of 32 feet/second/second (the pull of gravity toward the earth) on another 200 foot Redwood and a 275 foot plus Dyerville Giant that has already fallen?

REDWOOD TOOTHPICKS 

FOR PAUL BUNYAN!

ABOVE:  As this tree fell in 2007, it fell across the tree that had already fallen just below the midline of the top picture. It cracked and then fell over the Dyerville Giant which is laying about 10 feet behind Jim in the bottom picture.  This broke the tree PAST the Dyerville Giant off BUT reflected the energy between the two trees BACK toward the first trees.  This reflected energy caused the explosion of the part of the falling tree that was between the two trees already on the ground.  Man, what an awesome study in wave mechanics.

So, on our way back to the rig we went through historic Ferndale.  Ferndale started to be settled right smack dab in the middle of Queen Victoria's reign (June 1837-January 1901).  So, almost the whole town is built in the Victorian Style.  Below are a bunch of pictures of these very well preserved Victorian Homes for your appreciation without comments: