Day 26 (6/21): Miles traveled: ~ 375

Location: various sites, ending at Hume Lake Campground, Kings Canyon National Park

Science: air quality measurements in Bakersfield Walgreens parking lot, Hume Lake Campground (some campfires here)

The desert is gorgeous. Ominous. Emotionally challenging. While leaving Bree and our total relaxation visit was tough, I will not pretend that I wasn't happy to put Joshua Tree and Death Valley in general in my rearview mirror as I set off for Kings Canyon, where I had a date with some of the biggest trees on earth -- and, probably more importantly, an actual campsite (the only day available when I tried to reserve one in February).

I finished the audio version of Indigenous People's History of the United States just before I hit Bakersfield, CA. I cannot fully describe how powerful this book was in terms of correcting some very huge historical misunderstandings/gaps/outright lies about the US that I have been harboring (embarrassingly and horribly) since my childhood. I am still processing what I learned (50 years of miseducation and willful ignorance will take some time to fully undo) but I was struck by two things primarily:

1. The fact that the US frontier only looked "wild" to pioneers, but was in fact an overgrown landscape that had already been very carefully managed by Indigenous Nations hundreds and even thousands of years prior. This is likely the only reason settler colonialists were able to survive at all.

2. The US government has been at constant war (in one way or another) with Indigenous Nations illegally placed within its borders. This is truly the "never-ending" war, and it undergirds our military historically and currently in some really disturbing ways. I come from a military family -- this new information is particularly difficult for me to fully digest -- and after reading Ortiz I felt suddenly resensitized to the degree to which our country is militarized in general.

I stopped in Bakersfield to resupply at a Walgreens and got an air quality sample (again forgot to take pictures). Once I was back on the road I started the audible version of Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer and started dreaming about what seeing one of the biggest trees in the world would be like. I will admit this -- I actually did rehearse various scenarios of how I would greet these dignitaries. Should I touch them respectfully but keep distance? Should I hug the heck out of them? Should I give them the old boy nod-regard while standing a respectful distance away? Would it hurt their roots for me to even get close to them at all? What felt right and respectful to me? I listened to Robin Wall Kimmerer describing Potowatome rituals communicating gratitude to all earth's living beings for the lessons they provided us humans, and tried to think through a similar action that would not be appropriation but would be my own. I felt great awe and gratitude for these trees, and was haunted by the fact that they had so much to teach us about weathering climate change and the work of reproduction and interconnection.  

These blissful thoughts were rudely interrupted by what greeted me when I drove into the foothills of Kings Canyon Nation Park. It did not take me long to see that my Rockies driving experience was peanuts compared to driving the southern Sierras.......not in terms of height, maybe, but the roadways were an all-new kind of hairpin-turns-with-outrageous-views situation. Some of this was exacerbated by the fact that several past wildfires had removed vegetation that I think normally would have (albeit falsely) made me feel safer and not about to fly out into the great wide open like Thelma and Louise (my heroes, but still). 

Luckily for me, Robin Wall Kimmerer's voice embodies CALM. I tried to lose myself in her voice and the story of Hazel and her Kentucky farmhouse while hoping (OK, maybe even praying... to what, I do not know) that another logging truck wasn't barreling around the next hairpin switchback. 

As I white-knuckled my way up to the green giants atop those mountain peaks, it was starting to get dark. I decided my goal was to head first to the biggest tree in the park, hug it (because trying to deny the tree-hugger inside of me would have been a bad false start to my communicating with said tree), with the promise to return the next day to be able to fully and completely take in its grandeur, lessons, and peace. It was well past dusk once I got to the entrance, and after a quick look at the National Park brochure, I realized I was going to be cutting it close. There were still 20ish miles to go to get to my campsite. I also noticed that the highway was called the General's Highway and the TREES were named for generals Grant and Sherman. Remember #2 from above? Still thinking about this. Also, the General Grant tree was named "America's Christmas Tree" about 80 years ago........   

Anyway, I ended up making it -- the Sequoia were magnificent even in the dusk. Their bark felt warm under my hands, still harboring the extreme heat of the day. They seemed to glow the color of a burnt sienna crayola, and were bigger even beyond my wildest imaginations. 

The campsite, on the other hand, was a rather large let-down after another clifftastic drive -- crowded and a bit noisy. I also had to back the trailer in and it took me awhile. The one saving grace was that it was actually cool that night -- perfect for trailer sleeping, just like CO -- a clear signal that I was no longer in the desert, even if it was still pretty dry country. 

An extra word about the noise there -- I have no idea where this was actually staged, but some sort of massive concert was happening nearby, or at the bottom of the canyon where sound just carried really well. At first there was music (that I did not recognize) for about an hour, and cheering from what sounded like a big crowd. Seemed like the warm-up gig. Then the major act seemed to be coming on, with the crowd cheering louder and rowdier.......but strangely, there was never any music. Just someone saying something on the mic to rile up the crowd every 3 minutes or so....it continued this way until well after quiet hours.

The next day, before heading back out to measure air quality near the Sequoia I had said a quick hello to the night before, I overheard a camper talking to the Camp Host about the concert, who responded with, "Yeah, they're filming some sort of movie out there. It's been going on for a couple days now. I think they're supposed to be finishing up by next week."

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