Hiking in The Redwoods

August 1, 2013, Redcrest, California. We have finally worked our way into the heart of the California Redwoods with a one week stay right on The Avenue of The Giants. Dan's sister lives in this neck of the woods, and for one week all of Dan's brothers and sisters, their spouses, a couple of cousins, and assorted nieces and nephews converged in Redcrest, Scotia, and Weott for a big family reunion. The giant redwoods are beyond amazing. All the usual words to describe them don't begin to come close, but here goes: towering, majestic, humbling, sacred, beautiful, awe-inspiring. As many times as we come to this area, I never tire of walking among these giants. This time around we took a 10-mile hike through the Rockefeller Forest, the largest remaining old growth redwood forest in the world. Needless to say, this was a gorgeous, impressive hike. I simply cannot fathom the vast lives of these trees, the immensity of change in the world from the time they were saplings, up until now. Hopefully some of our pictures have captured a small glimpse into the magnificence of these trees.

Lost Coast

July 27, 2013. Summer might be just 5 weeks old, but our season on the Oregon Coast has come to an end, and we are back in California. Seven weeks flew right by and I'm not quite ready to leave. I'm sure we haven't seen the last of Oregon, but for this time around it was time to continue south. Our first stop in California was the Benbow RV Park and Golf Resort in Garberville. After driving past this place numerous times and thinking it might be fun to actually stay there, we decided to use the 5 days we shaved off our Gold Beach visit and check Benbow out. Having always wanted to visit the Lost Coast area of Northern California, this gave us the perfect location to start from. The Lost Coast is a natural and development-free area of the state's north coast in Humboldt and Mendocino counties. The steepness and related geo-technical challenges of the coastal mountains make this stretch of coastline too costly for state highway or county road builders to establish routes through the area, leaving it the most undeveloped and remote portion of the California coast. Without any major highways, the communities of Petrolia, Shelter Cove, and Whitethorn remain secluded from the rest of California. The day after we arrived in Garberville we took a drive over for a day trip to Lost Coast. Rugged, beautiful, wild and secluded, we had much fun exploring Shelter Cove and walking on Black Sand Beach.