We spent the weekend in Redwood National Park so I am combining Days 9-12 into one post (you didn't think we were going to be able to keep up with a post every day, did you?)
Friday morning we woke up early to get on the road. We had so much fun camping in Oregon that we couldn’t wait to get to the Redwoods to set up camp again. We made a quick stop at
Noble Coffee in Ashland and started driving. A few hours later we had crossed over the border into California (Ore-GONE as Dan put it).
Our campground was a little bit south of the town of Crescent City and since we had a few hours to kill before we could check-in, we decided to stop for lunch and do to a little work. Two hours later, we were fueled up, caught up on work and blog posts and ready to disconnect for the weekend.
We stayed at
Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park based on, well based on nothing. We did a Google search for campgrounds in the Redwoods, most of them were full, so we blindly picked a spot in this one. Fortunately for us, the campground was beautiful, and our spot (#26) was perfect. After walking around the campground, we were convinced that we had the most secluded and pretty site. The campground was in the new-growth forest, meaning trees were less than 1000 years old. The old-growth forest trees are as old as 2000 years. That afternoon we set up camp, made a fire and cooked up some delicious tacos. We sat around the fire and played cribbage before enjoying a delicious adult hot cocoa beverage before bed.
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| Taco Friday! |
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| Yum! |
The next day (Day 10) we woke up in the tent and each tried to guess what time it was. I guessed 7:15, Dan guessed 6:45. Dan checked his phone and started laughing as he said, “It’s 10 am”. I can’t tell you the last time I slept that late, especially while camping – I guess we needed it! We woke up, cooked up some oatmeal and decided to have a leisurely day around camp and not do any driving. We were lucky to have several hikes start right from the campground so we started on Tressle Loop which led to Saddler Skyline which led to Hobbs Wall. The hike was mostly new growth, but there were some serious stumps along the way.
There were also TONS of slugs. Dan was slightly obsessed with photographing them and would be incredibly disappointed if I didn't include at least one photo.
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| Banana slug - they were huge! |
We enjoyed the hike and were surprised by the fact that we didn't see a single other person on the trail (we will learn why the next day). We laughed at the end though, when we realized our "leisurely" day had turned into an 8 mile hike. By the time we were done hiking, it was late afternoon so we relaxed a bit, played some cribbage and started the fire.
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| Redwoods and Red Wine |
One of our goals of the trip is to explore passions and interests and have creative outlets. So Dan opened up his newly purchased art supplies and began his first painting of, you guessed it, Squirrelly! (It turned out quite nice, although I still don't think it's completely dry yet-anyone know how to get oil paints to dry?).
We cooked some chili dogs for dinner and then started to feel the first droplets of rain. We quickly packed everything up just in case of more rain and enjoyed the fire a little longer before bed.
The next day (Day 11), we woke up to heavier rain. Our tent was nice and dry but our camp chairs and picnic table were quite wet. We cooked up some breakfast burritos with our leftover taco supplies and got in the car for a day of exploring. We asked the ranger for a recommendation and she suggested Howland Road just a few miles north from us. This area was all old-growth forest and was absolutely amazing (thus why there were no hikers on the trail from our campground)! We drove about 8 miles, stopping several times for photo ops. It’s hard to relay the magnitude of these trees through pictures, but they were unbelievable!
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| Driving along Howland Road |
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| A quick stop by the river |
The rain had died down slightly so we stopped and did a short 2 mile hike/walk through Stout Grove. We hadn’t gotten our fill of hiking yet for the day so we stopped again at Fern Falls, indicated a 2.8 mile trail. We weren’t sure if that was round trip or one way but we decided to give it a shot. Turned out to be one-way, so we put in another 8 mile hiking day and our legs were feeling it!
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| Dan by one of the giant redwoods in Stout Grove |
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| Squirrelly enjoying a beverage after hiking to Fern Falls |
A short drive back to camp and the rain had not let down. In fact it seemed to be picking up. We had an easy dinner planned, soup, so we fired up the small backpacking stove and heated up the soup. Since everything was wet, we ate standing up around the awesome fire Dan was able to make in the rain.
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| We had to burn all our firewood since we were leaving the next day |
We packed everything into the bear locker (oh yeah, did I mention there are bears here?) and headed into the tent to stay dry. A couple of cribbage games later (which Dan won all of) we were tuckered out from two days of hiking and ready for bed.
Day 12, we woke to louder and heavier rain. We delayed the inevitable as long as we could and finally dragged ourselves out of the dry tent to start packing to leave. First things first though, we boiled some water for coffee (because let's be honest, even pouring rain won't keep us from our coffee). We packed up all of our wet stuff as quickly as we could and drove off headed for American Canyon (a small town outside of Napa). This was one of our longest driving days of the entire trip, 6 hours in total. We stopped a couple of times for bathroom breaks and lunch. We arrived in American Canyon early evening, checked into the hotel, ordered a pizza and tried to dry out all of our camping gear.
The next week will be spent in Napa, San Francisco and Stockton, visiting family and friends, before heading to Yosemite for more camping!
Fun to read and beautiful photos!
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