I awoke from my lovely Super 8 slumber at about 4am without the ability to regain unconsciousness so I decided to read an /r/askreddit thread about crazy things that have happened in National Parks – most of which involved cougars. So, that was great for me considering my extreme fear of cougar attack. Garrett finally woke up around 9am and we ventured over to the free breakfast. Ahh, delicious off-brand Raisin Bran, weird mini-cinnamon rolls, and toast. What a lovely combination. It was around this time that we found out marriage equality had been achieved and we hurried back to our hotel room to watch Fox News overreact to the way-way-way overdo event. Our biggest regret was that we couldn’t be in New Orleans to celebrate with our friends and to visit the Country Club. Aside from that day, the only thing we’ve really missed about New Orleans is our friends.
After Garrett forced me to shower (ugh) and we packed up, we headed towards Redwood National & State Parks. Camping throughout this entire road trip has been a nightmare. Most of the state and national parks now use an online reservation system where campers can make reservations up to SEVEN MONTHS IN ADVANCE. This has made it EXTREMELY difficult for us to find camping along the way – especially in California, near Independence Day. We figured we wouldn’t be able to get in at Redwoods because at least one of the camps is booked for the rest of the summer so we began stopping at each campground within 20 minutes of Redwoods. The first was full. Ugh. We drove to the second one, Big Lagoon County Park – which we had high hopes for because it was a county park and therefore did NOT take online reservations. As we drove through the camping area we realized we might have been too optimistic, as campsite after campsite was full. FINALLY, when we got to the last campsite, it was available – we had a home, if only for a few days.
Before we could even set up shop we were greeted by a wonderful older lady who had sold all of her belongings and taken off in a camper just a few days before from Santa Cruz and was exploring the US “while she could still hike”. She gave us a very warm welcoming and offered us some tips about the area. We set up our tent to mark our spot and then set off for the nearest town for a quick bite to eat. After lunch, we went and picked up some fire wood and foil and then headed to the Thomas H. Kuchel Visitor Center to request information on camping and hiking in Redwood Parks. We returned to our campground and then headed to the beach!!
Cold and 2kewl4skool in all of Garrett’s clothes / hat.
Napping, of course.
The waves were really neat and the water was still very cold, which was fine with me, because I’m too afraid of jellyfish and sharks to get in anyway. This area of the shore begins to have a LOT of HUGE amazing rocks jutting out of the water like islands and when the tide rolls in and out it deposits rather large, smooth rocks on the shoreline. The sand is more of little tiny rocks than it is sand. I re-read the first 76 pages of East of Eden, my favorite Steinbeck book, while Garrett napped.
We returned to our campsite and began setting up for dinner and a round of Dominion. Several cars drove through the campground looking for a spot to no avail. After a hippie van of 3 people around our age circled the camp twice looking for a spot, we offered to let them camp with us. They were overjoyed. Turned out they were on their way to the Dead reunion concert in Santa Monica. One guy was from Montana while the couple was from Portland, OR. They offered to let us sleep on their property while we were there.
Yup, that’s their van.
We played Cards Against Humanity, ate some food and hung out before heading to bed early. The next morning I woke up and Casey gave me some coffee while everyone else slept. They woke up, ate breakfast, and said their goodbyes. We then left for the Visitors Center once more – to secure our hiking permit for the Tall Trees Trail to the Tall Trees Grove. Here’s Garrett with your tree lesson of the day:
Old growth redwood forests were estimated to occupy over 2 million acres of land, but now cover only about 80,000 acres. Redwood National and State Parks cover about 40,000 acres of old growth. The tallest redwood, Hyperion, which is also the tallest tree in the world, is 379 feet tall. They keep Hyperion’s location a secret as they seek to protect the ecosystem that surrounds it in order to keep it healthy and growing. A number of factors help the trees in this area of the country get so tall, such as large amounts of winter rain, summer fog, and rich soil and wind protection in river valleys. Because their bark can be up to a foot thick, they are protected from fire and insects and can live to be over 2,000 years old.
Thanks Garrett! On that note, I haven’t been to many forests or wilderness areas in general in my life, but I have been to the middle of the Costa Rican Rainforest, and I can tell you the Redwoods are 100x better. They are so old and ancient looking, it seems as if a dinosaur might pop out at any time. The trees are unbelievably large in every respect and the environment itself is so, so different from the second growth forests were used to seeing today as a result of the massive commercial logging which took place in the 20th century. If you ever have the opportunity to go, I HIGHLY recommend seeing the redwoods and I more so suggest doing the Tall Trees Trail & Grove Hike. We hiked 1.5 miles down, walked a 1 mile loop containing the largest and biggest trees, and walked a steep 1.5 miles out climbing 800 feet in elevation. And now – the pictures (which do them NO justice – seriously – go see them!):
Garrett hugging trees.
This thing is called a “burl” and its hella weird.
The maple trees were stunning as well, and all had a TON of moss growing from them.
Weird “banana slug” – they were everywhere.
After finishing our amazing hike Garrett was super happy, of course. He loves trees. We then left and went to check out the city of Arcata, CA and dined at Sushi Tao which was cheap, decent, and very fast. Arcata was kind of weird and underwhelming. We then went to a local grocery store (basically everything is organic and delicious and the vegetables are a LOT cheaper here than they are in Louisiana) and decided to buy some ice and get some meat and eggs (YAY!). Up until this point we had only eaten things that were non-perishable while camping as it wasn’t worth the hassle of dealing with ice, but it was worth it for one dinner and one breakfast. We had packets of ground beef, carrots, and onions along with sweet potatoes. It was delicious! We also played Sherlock for the first time, which I loved, though I don’t know how interested Garrett was.
After dinner we headed down to the bay adjacent to our campground to see the sunset..
The next morning we had a tasty breakfast of chicken sausage, eggs, and avocado along with the delicious instant coffee we picked up from Trader Joe’s. This coffee has proven INFINITELY better than the instant coffee we got from Wal-Mart, go figure.
Our campsite while in Big Lagoon.
#masterchef
Fancy breakfast!
After breakfast we packed up and said goodbye to California. I took two Dramamine an hour before we left, ate a big breakfast, and stared straight ahead while we drove, and didn’t read – NO motion sickness this time, yay! We took the US HWY 101 Scenic Route and got to experience the amazing redwoods all over again. After crossing over into Oregon and driving for a bit we got some ENORMOUS burritos from Lupita’s in Coo’s Bay. Garrett demolished his while mine demolished me.
We decided to take Highway 38 from there to Eugene as it was the scenic route but unfortunately there was a terrible accident about 9 miles in and the entire highway was closed. We turned around, took another way, and made it to Eugene early that evening. More on Eugene and Portland to come! We are leaving Portland this morning, going to the beach today, and arriving in Seattle to see my sister – Callie! – tonight! xoxo Steph
Garrett & Stephanie 
