May 6-7 - 2018 Kingsburg, California

On Sunday, the 6th, we moved from Mojave to Kingsburg, California (Fresno county). 150 miles / 240 km.
After about 50 miles the landscape changed and for the first time in weeks, we saw something that looked like decent farmland. There were lots of fields with orange trees (appelsintræer) and grapevines (vindruer).

As we came closer to our destination we saw almost only vines (druer).

It turns out that Fresno County is the raisin (rosin) capitol of the world, and the headquarters of the Sun-Maid Company is right across the street from where we are camping.

This is the largest raisin box in the world.
It is 12 ft (ca. 3.5 m) high, 8 ft (ca. 2.5 m) wide, and 4 ft. (ca. 1.25 m) deep.
It can hold 16,500 lbs (7484 kg) raisins!

Kingsburg is a town of about 12000 people. It was founded by Swedes. About a hundred years ago 95% of the people were Swedish. Not so anymore, but you see a lot of Swedish “stuff” in the streets. 





















We stopped in Kingsburg, because it is close to Sequoia National Park. Monday, we went to see the big trees.

Here are a few facts:
The Sequoia tree is among the biggest in the world. Not by height, but by volume. But even though they are not as tall as the Coast Redwood tree, you cannot help being impressed by the height as well.

We found out that the Sequoia and the Coast Redwood are not as much related (i familie) as we thought, but still related though. “Cousin, twice removed on the mother’s side” as the ranger said. (grand-grandkusine).

The Sequoia can live for thousands of years. Some of them are over 3000 years old!
This is the only place where they grow naturally (the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountians).
They only grow in elevation (højde) between 5000 ft and 7500 ft (ca. 1500-2300 meter).
They are dependent (afhængige) on fire to live. Fire opens the pine cones (kogler) to release the seeds (frø). Fire makes clearings so the seedlings (spirer) get light, and fire also kills fungus (svampe) and insects that may harm the seedlings. The tree itself is pretty fire resistant because of its thick bark ( 2 feet / 60 cm).
4 of the 5 biggest trees in the world (by volume) are in the park.

The biggest tree in the world by volume is “General Sherman”.
It is not the tallest at all, but still pretty tall: 275 feet (84 m (næsten 2½ x Rundetårn).
It is 2200 years old. The volume of the trunk (stammen) is 52500 cubic feet (1470 cubicmeter)
The Circumference (omkreds) is 100 feet (30 meter).

General Sherman

The tiles (fliserne) show the footprint ("fodaftryk") of the Sherman Tree

“General Grant” is another interesting tree. It is the third-largest tree in the world by volume.
It is the widest (bredeste) known Sequoia. 40 feet / 12 meter in diameter. 268 feet / 82 meter tall.
Circumference (omkreds) is 107 feet (33 meter). A young one though: Only 1700 years old, so there is lots of time to grow up and grow bigger.

General Grant

There were a lot of “smaller” Sequoias in the park but any of them way bigger than any tree we had ever seen before. All in all, an impressive tour.



































Written by JJ