Sequoia National Park - Big wood and grand gestures

We took an alternate route back through the woods towards the car and paused to admire some giant sequoias along the way. I also paused occasionally to spit out mouthfuls of the strange acidic foam that my roiling stomach was ejecting. It was starting to look more like I might have rabies than a stomach bug. Perhaps I got too close to a squirrel.

Even the runty giant sequoias are still big wood.

Even the ones that have fallen down are still worth seeing. This one used to bridge a road that visitors could drive through, but that route is closed to vehicle traffic now.

Once we eventually found our way back to the car, stripped off our ponchos and cranked up the heater we decided that we were having approximately no fun at all and that we would only make one more sightseeing stop in the park, unless the weather improved dramatically. We both wanted to visit General Sherman, the largest tree in the world and often considered to be the largest organism. Surely we couldn't pass this close to such an enormous being without dropping in to say hello, even in the pouring rain.

This is General Sherman, which has stood here for an estimated 2200 years. It was here before Christianity, before the enlightenment, before the industrial revolution, before the nature of our modern lives could even have been imagined. This tree was standing when the Roman Empire was fighting the Gauls and discovering bacchanalia. This tree was standing when Eratosthenes made the first good measurement of the distance between Earth and the Sun by studying lunar eclipses. It has survived lightning, fire, climate change, human beings and many days colder and rainier than this one that was making us huddle and shiver miserably at its foot.

Through it all General Sherman has stood, silent and inscrutable. It is a living witness, testifying merely by existing, to the scale of millennia. It is also another one of those special places on the earth where human beings realise their smallness and are inspired to make great gestures. This time the magic worked.

Marcus knelt down in a puddle, held out a diamond ring and asked me to marry him. It was weirdly romantic, despite the cold and the rain and the nausea. I said "Yes" and we somehow managed to synchronise our shivering long enough to get the ring onto my blue finger. "Now let's get out of here."