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COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD 18 | THE COLONY NEWS | JULY 2021 | SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS By Kathy Sullivan When I started writing this column, I said I would be writing about places you can drive to easily for a day trip, but I have been up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains for the last couple of weeks and, as always, I am amazed at their grandeur. Do you know how lucky we are to live in California (except for the traffic)? We have the tallest mountain in the lower 48, though many Coloradoans will try to argue this fact. Our Mount Whitney, at 14,505 feet, is the tallest. Colorado has more mountains over 14,000 feet than we do, but we have the tallest. We also have the largest tree, General Sherman, in Sequoia National Park, and the tallest tree, Hyperion, at 380 feet (it's taller than Big Ben in London and the Empire State Building) in the Redwoods. In the White Mountains near Bishop are the oldest trees in the world – the Great Basin Bristlecone Pine. The oldest was thought to be Methuselah at 4,852 years old, but in 2013 they found one of the other Bristlecone Pines to be over 5,080 years old. Can you imagine – this tree was already 3,000 years old when Christ was born! We also have the hottest and lowest place in the United States, both in Death Valley. And last, but definitely not least, in Yosemite is El Capitan, the world's largest piece of granite. All our superlatives except Hyperion, which is a coastal redwood, are either in the Sierra Nevadas or adjoining them. I want to share some photos from the majestic Sierra Nevada Mountain Range with you this month. Sierra Nevada Mountains There is nothing quite as nice as finding a meadow early in the morning with the grass still wet with dew. The Sierra Mountains are studded with beautiful meadows.