Southern Living is my escape magazine when the weather is too ____ (hot, cold, dry, wet, stormy, windy). Fill in the blank. I discovered in the May issue, Cat Island National Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana harbors the largest bald cypress tree (Taxodium distichum) east of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Interesting way to describe it, as there are no native bald cypress trees to the west of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Anyway, this giant bald cypress near the Mississippi River is 96 feet tall, 17 feet in diameter and estimated to be about 1,000 years old. Just 536 miles from my house.