Just a Day in the Life...: redwoods

These trees are huge, like really, really huge. It’s very difficult to comprehend that they are living (or were living!) things.

The drive to Mt. St. Helens was uneventful. We at breakfast in a little Mexican restaurant in Del Rio and kept trucking. Being the benevolent parents we are, we stopped at a Walmart in Eureka to buy the girls “Breaking Dawn.”

The big highlight of this drive was the Columbia River Gorge. OH MY was it beautiful! I knew it was the windsurfing capital (of the world, maybe?), but I didn’t have any idea it would like like it does.

There were waterfalls scattered throughout the cliffs and the views of the continuing gorge were spectacular.

We finally got to our camp pretty late at night, maybe around 10:30pm. We set up the tent in the dark, drizzling night with the sound of a bubbling creek somewhere nearby.

Oh what a beautiful bright and early morning! So far we have totally lucked out on the weather. We needed to buy more dry ice so we used Skyvie (our snazzy new Android app) to track some down. Along the way we went back to Lombard Street so we could get better photos of the curviest street on the planet (?). The photos totally do NOT do it justice, though, and there’s probably not a more entertaining way to go down it than by GoCar. We didn’t try it with the Sequoia!

There’s Alcatraz off in the bay. These streets really were nuts!

We also went to Golden Gate Park (which, by the way, isn’t actually that near the Golden Gate Bridge) and took a photo op outside the conservancy.

We walked around the park a bit and went over to the California Academy of Sciences Museum. I think this will be one of my very few regrets on this trip. We didn’t have time to really see the museum, so we just visited the gift store. It was also expensive at $100 for the family, so I’d like to get back to San Francisco to spend a full day and truly get to enjoy it.

Sadly, we got back in the truck and started to head out of the city. We went to Presidio Park, which is actually where the Golden Gate Bridge is, and wandered around for a few minutes. The photo opportunities were awesome, and the gift store was nice (I like park and museum gift stores more than any other stores out there!).

So now it was bye-bye San Francisco and on to the Avenue of the Giants, which is a 35 mile trek through some of the country’s tallest trees.

We did stop at a small winery, Saracina, but me being the huge wine-snob that I am, I was bummed they didn’t have any moscato (lol! love the stuff). Despite my depression, we purchased some olive oil made from their 130 year old trees, seen below.

The redwoods were totally and absolutely unbelievable. There is nothing I can write that will do them justice, but to say that you absolutely need to see them for yourselves. The campground, Humboldt Redwoods State Park, Burlington area, was quiet, peaceful and packed (but you wouldn’t know that!). I wish we had planned for a couple of days there instead of one night. Sad smile