The Chandelier Drive Thru Tree 5-23-2010

Sunday I woke up at eight and decided I was going to see something new.  I hopped in the shower and considered which place on my list would be the most fun  and in the end I decided on the famous Chandelier Drive Thru Tree.     

Kermit and I drove 150 miles north to the tiny town of Leggett, population 817.  It’s further north than I’ve ever been, and I passed through a bunch of small towns like Cloverdale, Ukiah and Willits on the way.  It amazed me how the landscape changed the further north I went.  

Sonoma County has grown a lot since I first moved there back in 1994.  Santa Rosa alone has over 200,000 people, and every where I look the forests are retreating.  New housing developments, shopping malls, Walmarts and other signs of civilization are eating away at the natural beauty that existed thousands of years before the first white man set foot on these shores.  

Yet as you pass further and further north nature’s rule becomes absolute.  I drove through valley after valley of densely packed trees, most of them towering redwoods that stabbed hundreds of feet into the air on either side of the 101 freeway.  It was like driving through a forest, and there was no visible sign of human habitation other than the road itself.  

The few towns I passed grew smaller and less frequent, and Leggett itself wasn’t even a real town at all.  I followed narrow roads that led into a steep valley, and after paying my $5 to get in was rewarded with this sight:  

Click the picture for a much larger view

You can see from the fence how high the tree is, but the picture doesn’t really do it justice.  Standing beneath this tree shows you your place in the world in a way no man made structure really can.  This tree was old when Christ was born, and has watched the world pass for literally thousands of years.  

Not far from the tree itself someone hung this poem, which really captures the majesty of redwoods like the Chandelier tree:  

Click on the picture for a larger view

 In case you have trouble reading the words here they are:  

  

“Here, sown by the Creator’s hand,  

In serried Ranks, the Redwoods stand;  

No other clime is honored so,  

No other lands their glory know.  

   

The greatest of Earth’s living forms,  

Tall conquerors that laugh at storms;  

Their callenge still unanswered rings,  

Through fifty centuries of kings.  

   

The nations that with them were young,  

Rich empires, with their forsts far-flung,  

Lie buried now- their splendor gone;  

But these proud monarchs still live on.  

   

So shall they live, when ends our day,  

When our crude citadels decay;  

For brief the years allotted man,  

But infinite perennial’s span  

   

This is their temple, vaulted high,  

And here we pause with reverent eye,  

With silent tongue and awe struck soul;  

For here we sense life’s proper goal;  

   

To be like these, straight, true and fine,  

To make our world, like theirs, a shrine  

Sink down, oh traveler, on your knees,  

God stands before you in these trees.

The Chandelier tree was the centerpiece of a beautiful grove of redwoods, but there was also a pond directly north.  I saw ducks, deer and even this family of wild turkeys:

Click the picture for larger view

 

I spent about an hour wandering the grounds, and just as I was leaving I found an eagle feather.  Somehow it symbolized the entire trip, so I snagged it as a keepsake and began the long trek back home.  The serenity of the place was so powerful that I still feel it the next day.

If you haven’t had a chance to see the tree do so!  You won’t be sorry you took the trip.