After our summer snowshoeing expedition in Crater Lake, we were happy to be making our way to the warmer climate in California. We celebrated our entrance into Cali with a playlist of all our songs that had 'California' in the title, such as ‘California Girls’ by the Beach Boys, ‘California’ by Phantom Planet. We’ve probably played ‘California’ by Phantom Planet fifty times, and we especially love the shout-out in the song to Highway 101, which is our fave Cali highway.
Not only was this the first day of our trip in California, it was also the first time that I saw the beach on the trip! Parm, note that I still hold that I was the first to touch the Pacific in Vancouver since the bay in Vancouver is part of the Pacific J
We set up camp for the fourth time on our trip (we’re getting to be pros now) at a lovely campsite just south of Crescent City that felt like Jurassic Park. We even had a little staircase that led up to our campsite – great for the ambiance, not so great for lugging our things.
Jurrasic Park, right?
For dinner, we had our last Mountain House astronaut meal. This was a very bittersweet moment – the Mountain House meals are the easiest dinner ever, but sometimes have some weird textures going on. We will now be forced to go shopping for our dinners when we camp. Maybe we’ll have super-gourmet camping meals like the Franklins! Or…. PB&J sandwiches.
We also bough some essential supplies on our way into the campground – giant marshmallows for our campfire (we will post a pic of these at some point, they are huge) and fire starter blocks. You could say we’ve been fire-starting challenged so far on the trip – Emmie will get the fire started eventually, but the kindling is usually wet or just won’t catch even with the fire paste that my Dad equipped us with. So we finally decided to cave in and get the fire starter blocks, and they are magic. We can now start a fire in under 45 minutes! Woohoo!!! So many giant s’mores to be had.
The next day, we made our way down Highway 101 through the various Redwood parks, a network of state and national parks. Our first stop was the Trees of Mystery, which not only had a skytrain and a cathedral tree (that we bypassed because they were mucho expensivo), but also a ginormous talking Paul Bunyon. We think that there was a guy inside the head of the giant Paul Bunyon who talked to his captive audience. He even congratulated Emmie on her pose on his boot. And we think he winked at us.
The Trees of Mystery gift store also had a cache of Smokey the Bear paraphernalia, as demonstrated by Parm. We’ve heard a lot about Smokey the Bear on this trip from the park rangers. They have a love/hate relationship with STB. On the one hand, great for preventing silly campfires from getting out of hand. On the other, the STB way of thinking prevented many natural wildfires from taking hold, which actually weakened the tree population. That weakening is part of what's lead to the pine beetle infestations across the country. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the paraphernalia!
Only you can prevent forest fires.
Further down the coast, we stopped in Eureka! for lunch at the Banana Hut, a Hawaiian BBQ haven (I added the exclamation point in Eureka! – it should be included it’s official name for sure). The Banana Hut lunch was one of the best we’ve had, and we were sad not to be able to stay for evening Mai Tais. But alas, we hit the road again to travel down the ‘Avenue of the Giants,’ a scenic stretch of 101 that winds through the most beautiful redwoods in the world.
Be the tree...
Since we were surrounded by the most beautiful forest and we have to get in shape to prepare for our fourteener in CO (get ready, Dad!), we decided to go for a run through the trees. It was probably the most beautiful run I’ve ever taken – winding through the giant trees, greenery everywhere, a cooling breeze, and a path that was cushioned by pine needles. Then we took a few photos… probably should have taken the run after the photo shoot!
The runners in the Redwoods.
And we did get suckered into one tourist trap that was totally worth it – the drive-through tree. It was a little nerve-wrecking, but totes worth it.
Next up, a longer-than-planned sojourn in the heavenly Sonoma!
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