Mountains and Palm Trees

Hello everyone! I'm terribly sorry I've been unable to write a post for the past few days. I've been crazy busy. I got to Fresno on Saturday afternoon and spent time with my host, a poet named Jean Janzen. On my way to Fresno, I flew over some beautiful landscape.

On Sunday, I attended College Community Mennonite Brethren Church. I've been told that Mark Suderman came here for a bit and was the choir director. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to find a picture of him. After a church brunch, Kevin Enns-Rempel, the archivist/library director at Fresno Pacific University and his wife took me to King's Canyon National Park. We had a nice drive up into the Sierra Nevada range out of the San Joaquin Valley.

A foothill. Not a mountain. Although, by Iowan standards, it is a mountain.

Orange groves in the foreground and more foothills.

Starting to get up into the mountains, but still in the foothills.

Closer to more foothills.

King's Canyon is the home of several groves of sequoia trees. These trees are gigantic. Here's a picture of some:

Oh, those don't look too big.

Here's a sign they used to show the scale:

Oh, they're big.

These are really something that you need to go see yourself. In this grove is also the General Grant tree (here is the Wikipedia article, so I don't have to bother you with statistics). It is the third largest tree in the world. I tried to get some pictures of it, but because of the size, it doesn't work so well.

There's a big fire scar on the tree. Forest fires actually help sequoias. However, because of the chemical composition of their bark, it is almost impossible to light it on fire.

Oh, and it's also called "The Nations Christmas Tree." Merry Christmas, here's a huge tree.

Here's me next to a sequoia. Not the General Grant, but another one that you could get next to.

Like I really needed to look any shorter than I am.

Now for a bit more scale.

Here's a sequoia cone. It's very small for the size of tree it comes from.

However, these are actually the seeds. Some say that mustard seeds have a big transformation when they grow into mustard trees, but they had never seen sequoias. 

Giant trees.

When the trees die (which is rare) they often fall over and pull up several boulders that have lodged in their root balls. Standing inside of that log is Kevin, who is probably around 6 feet tall.

There were also some twin trees:

We couldn't tell if it was two trees that grew together or one seedling that go split at an early point in life. There was no sign explaining it.

We left the sequoia grove and went up another 2500 feet, to a place where sequoias don't grow. This is known as Panoramic Point

Forest fires have a bigger impact outside of the sequoia groves. 

The view from Panoramic Point

Panoramic Point

The Eagle Scouts get their own peak in the Sierra Nevada range.

A tree that couldn't quite make up its mind. Probably a pine of some sort.

This week I am at Fresno Pacific University. My home for the week, the Mennonite Library and Archives:

The "Mennonite Collection" any book written by or about Mennonite Brethren or Mennonites. In this collection there is even a book on auto body sheet metal repair.

The research area. 

The work area.

This is a format that I am much more familiar with than what was in Hillsboro. I feel like the Center for Mennonite Brethren studies at Hillsboro is more of a heritage center than a university archives, as both Bluffton and Fresno Pacific's archives function.

Fresno Pacific's collections are quite different from Hillsboro's in that there are fewer photographs. They are home to the Mennonite Brethren Missions Board archives, which means they have information on any M.B. missionary. This has made it a little difficult to find what I want, because there is so much to choose from. However, I feel that it will not cause too much of a problem. There are many fewer photographs because there are not as many personal files here. Here, they have boxes and boxes of letters from missionaries written to the missions board, but very few pictures specifically connected to the people. This means that there will probably be very few pictures from inside the archives this week.

However, that means you will get a lot of pictures from outside, and it is beautiful here. This is a project that I'm working on this week. It is the Pinterest of the archives. They have many of their university photos digitized already, and we're starting with pictures of the campus. There are some fun pictures there, and I encourage you to take a look.

I said that it was beautiful here on campus. I took a walk around to take some pictures for you guys, so here they are:

They have a lot of fountains here:

Behind McDonald Hall.

The fountain in the Alumni Plaza

Another fountain.

One of a pretty lady (Rebekah, the plaque says)

One on the lawn of the seminary.

The seminary is the oldest building on campus, once belonging to one of the largest rasin farmers in the world. At one point, it had a secret door and spiral staircase to the servant's quarters. Unfortunately, for insurance reasons, they had to close it up. If I went to school here, I would start a petition to open it back up. I mean, really. Secret doors.

In AIMS Hall, the math and science building, they have a Foucault Pendulum. 

One of three Foucault Pendulums in the state of California.

Foucault Pendulums illustrate the earth's rotation. I'm not sure about the whole science of it, so here is an explanation that does a better job than I can. Unfortunately, it seems to be turned off right now, so I haven't seen it in action.

Oh, what's that, northwestern Ohio? I can't hear you over the sound of these palm trees.

However, there are things that remind me of Bluffton on this campus:

My roommate at Bluffton takes Biblical Hebrew.

This building is not a circular building. In fact, it is a icosakaiheptagon, or a 27-sided polygon.

Oh, and it's called Marpeck Center.

At Bluffton, our student center is called Marbeck center, named for Pilgrim Marbeck. however, there are several spellings of his name. Here at Fresno Pacific, they use the spelling Pligram Marpeck. Both of these spellings are accepted. However, at Bluffton, it is better (in my humble opinion) but as a good historian always does, I will admit my bias.

Mom, they have a recycling program on this campus.

There is also a student convenience store, at which they have these wonderful treats. I'm staying far away from them.

That's all for now. Sorry again for falling behind on this. Sometimes we just get too busy. Until next time!

--Amanda