A Walk in the Forest

Our trip to the Redwoods started last Sunday. We flew into San Francisco and drove up to Shelter Cove from there. We took a detour over to the PCH and drove on that for awhile. It was a dizzying, windy road! At one point, Sam even asked a policeman for directions (I think it was Ponch). What should have been a 5 hour trip took 9 hours.

Day 1

We woke up to a gorgeous day. We got a little overexcited making our plans and put together 4 hikes that we wanted to do. As we drove the Avenue of the Giants between our first and second hikes, we got a little lost and ended up at a place where you can drive through a tree. So we did what any good tourist would do - we drove through! Very cool!

Our next stop was Rockefeller Loop. We didn’t know that a person could love a tree, but we found “ours” here. For Sam, the last piece had fallen in place for a plan he had been working on…what did he have in mind?

We took a nice little hike after that. Through the forest, under Hwy 101 and down to the Four Chimneys. We dipped our feet in the clear Eel River. The flats along the banks of the Eel are where most of the truly huge trees are. We looked for eels – didn’t find any :(

At the end of the day, we were worn out. We went back to our little house in Shelter Cove and collapsed.

Day 2

We decided to take it a bit easier on Tuesday. Two hikes – one long and one short. The longer hike was up to Whiskey Prairie. We found a whole lot more skeeters than booze up there. And slugs and snakes. Steph found out that hiking with me sometimes means missing turns and getting lost. So we walked a little farther than we expected. But it was a fine sunny day and we really didn’t care. The prairie was stunning. It was a little steeper than the prairies we have in Kansas.

Day 3

On Wednesday we went to get some real coffee at the local shop in town – the Fish Tank. We took our joe down to the black sand beach and watched the seal lions swim by. Words can’t really do justice to how pretty this beach is, so we took a lot of pictures that speak for themselves.

After the beach, we headed up to Eureka. We have found it! That’s actually kind of funny because we took off without a map or any real idea of how to get where we thought we wanted to go. We had lunch at the Samoa Cookhouse, which is the oldest operating lumber camp kitchen in the US. It was a bit short on taste but long on history. Just right for a lumberjack. That night we went to a Humboldt Crabs semi-pro baseball game. Between the beer, hot dogs, crowd, band and game, it was quite a night. Entertainment that good should cost more than 7 dollars!

PS - Sam is allergic to poison oak. Steph is not.

Day 4

Thursday was another day for hiking. We started out at Bull Creek Flats. This was the site of the Flood of ’51, which had leveled over 500 huge redwoods. They were still just lying there, strewn all over. It was kind of eerie. We looked for Ewoks but didn’t find any.

We headed back over to Rockefeller Loop for lunch after that. As we neared our tree, Steph walked right up to it and looked up at the branches. As she did that, I started telling her how special she is to me and how much I have loved and appreciated the last 18 months with her. When she turned around to listen to me, she found me down on one knee with a ring in my hand. I asked her if she would spend the rest of her life with me. She said Yes! After a lot of laughing, crying and pictures, we eventually did get a bit of lunch at a lovely creek nearby.

We went back to the house and spent the rest of the afternoon on the deck with Bananagrams, chips, guac, wine and beer. The sunset that night was spectacularly fitting for the day.

Day 5

We decided Friday would be a day for exploring the tide pools. We took our coffee to the shore and watched the tide go out. What an amazing ecosystem surrounds the tide pools! We saw crabs, anemones, starfish, mussels, birds of all sorts, sea lions, and seals. The rhythm of the waves and water was mesmerizing…crashing on the shore, spilling over the rocks, dancing and swirling through the crags. We sat there for two hours watching the tide go out. We got hungry eventually and left for some lunch. We came back for high tide and watched the whole scene in reverse for another two hours. What a peaceful, awesome day.

Our flight home on Saturday was scheduled for noon. Some simple math and a decent grasp of travel protocol made for a very early morning. But wow, what a trip. We hope you enjoy the slide show. It’s full of our senses and experiences from the trip. We have plenty more pictures where these come from!