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Besides serving as a location for a little bit of Gone With the Wind (1939) and a whole bunch of The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Bidwell Park is just a great place to spend a day. First stop: Caper Acres!
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Daddy's mutterings about leaving them in the cage didn't go over very well with Mommy and Grammie.
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Lots of fun things to climb on!
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Later... the kids stood on the stump of the famous Hooker Oak tree. See that low concrete wall way in the background? It extends out of frame right and left and up to the position of the photographer of this shot. The tree's branches used to spread out that far!
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From the Wikipedia entry:
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Hooker Oak was a large valley oak tree (Quercus lobata) in Chico, California. It was named after English botanist and Director of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker by Annie Bidwell in 1887. When it fell on May 1, 1977, it was nearly a hundred feet tall (30 m) and 29 feet (8.8 m) in circumference eight feet (2.4 m) from the ground. The largest branch measured 111 feet (33.6 m) from trunk to tip and the circumference of outside branches was nearly five hundred feet (150 m). Its age had been estimated at a thousand years, but on its demise it was found to be two trees, of 325 years each which had long ago grown into one.
Hooker Oak was a large valley oak tree (Quercus lobata) in Chico, California. It was named after English botanist and Director of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker by Annie Bidwell in 1887. When it fell on May 1, 1977, it was nearly a hundred feet tall (30 m) and 29 feet (8.8 m) in circumference eight feet (2.4 m) from the ground. The largest branch measured 111 feet (33.6 m) from trunk to tip and the circumference of outside branches was nearly five hundred feet (150 m). Its age had been estimated at a thousand years, but on its demise it was found to be two trees, of 325 years each which had long ago grown into one.
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I remember visiting the three shortly before it fell and then shortly after... my parents still have a few twigs that we collected from the site!
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The Hooker Oak, circa 1910.
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After spending a few hours in Bidwell Park, we decided that we need to go back before too long. So we'll go ahead and advertise a Chico Road Trip Part 3 post within a year!
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I think we still have a few more Bugz items to post in the next few days, so check back soon!
2 comments:
Such a fun trip. Can't wait to go back!
We have to go back -- the hotel still has my cell phone charger! :)
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