The park opens at sunrise. The guard smiles as she hands back a short receipt to tape on the front window. She works the morning shift most days of the week. Empty for now, the skateboarders will practice in their preferred corner of the parking lot later in the day. I pull into my usual spot.

The main loop is an easy ring with many benches, and the open fences function as suggestions – perches for birds, climbing equipment for children, steadying support for those overwhelmed by the conifers 1400 to 1800 years old. There are three species of redwoods, all in the subfamily Sequoioideae: Metasequoia (dawn redwood) in China, Sequoiadendron giganteum (giant sequoia) of the Sierra Nevada in California, and Sequoia sempervirens (coast redwood) that spans the rainier parts of coastal California and into Oregon. I visit to sit with these coast redwoods, taller than their giant sequoia brethren and mostly slimmer, though the tallest tree in this park is sixteen feet wide.

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