redwood vacation travel log

Saturday, after driving all day, we arrived at the KOA camp in Willits, California. All I have to say about this is that it is a VERY child/family friendly camp!

Sunday, we woke up early, so we packed up quickly and drove to Fort Bragg and went to church there - rather than hanging out in Willits and attending church THEN driving the hour to Fort Bragg. It was really nice to be in a ward that isn't 50% primary age children. it was nice to be able to hear and have quiet in the chapel. My kids were 1,000 times quieter than they are at home, and I think it's because in our home ward, it is always so noisy that they don't seem to hear that they are making noise. In the quiet of this other ward, they seemed to grasp that they needed to be quiet too. It was VERY nice! After church we drove to MacKerrich State Park, set up camp, then went beach exploring. We went first to Glass Beach(first picture with Trina), a former landfill, which after they had cleaned out as much of the junk as they could - it left behind lots and lots of pieces of broken glass. The ocean had done it's work and smoothed all the glass into pretty little clear colored "rocks." The beach was a rocky area, with lots of tide pools to explore. We found sea anemones, hermit crabs, and a few other sea things that I can't name. After Glass Beach, we went to a more family friendly (less rocky) beach called Pudding Beach. (picture with me and Bryan) The kids loved it. That night, back at the state park, we hiked out along a boardwalk trail to an overlook where we could see some sea lions.

Monday we drove North to the Avenue of the Giants. We stopped at chandelier tree - a drive through tree near Leggett. With our carrier on the roof - we didn't fit through the tree. BUMMER! I still think they should give a discount to cars that won't fit through the tree... I think that this was the day we went to Confusion Hill. There we went through "gravity house." The house is built on the angle of the slope, so everything is on a slant. (picture of the boys - and yes, I was doing my very best to hold the camera level) I have trouble with motion sickness and just looking into this house made me queasy! Walking through it (it wasn't that big) did me in and I had to sit and rest for a long time before I felt back to normal. We had planned to ride the miniature train also located at confusion hill, but since I wasn't feeling well after the gravity house, I sent Tim and the kids on the train ride and I took a nap in the van. We found our campground and after dinner we drove over to Meyers Flat, where there is another drive through tree. This one looked a little taller, so we decided to try it. it was a tight fit (The roof rack brushed the top) but as you can see in the photo, we got through it! They also had a great two story tree house that we all climbed up into. (the picture of a very cheesy me and all 3 kids was taken inside the tree up on the second level)

Tuesday we continued the trek North with a few stops here and there to hike around, or see roadside attractions. We camped at the Elk Prairie campground. It is called that for a good reason- we saw lots and lots of elk.

Wednesday we drove up to Crescent City to visit Ocean World, a small aquarium type attraction that, in my humble opinion, was NOT worth the money, but we did get to pet some live leopard sharks and see a short sea lion show. (and we got to take a picture of Tim and the kids being eaten by a shark) The kids thought it was fun. It was this day that we noticed our back tire was looking pretty low, and upon closer inspection, Tim found a nail (turned out to be a screw) in it. Luck was with us, because directly across the street from Ocean World was a tire repair shop. We got that taken care of, and went to spend the afternoon at the beach. (picture of Tim and Aaron in their big hole fortress) The kids loved the beach and would have been happy to go there everyday.

Thursday we woke up to wet everything. It had rained during the night and was still drizzling. (I thought it made for a pretty picture of our campsite, with the mist/clouds on the hills all around us.) We packed everything up wet, then drove along an 8 mile stretch of dirt road to get into Fern Canyon. (part of Golden Bluffs State Park.) We got there fairly early and there weren't too many people there yet. It was a BEAUTIFUL hike. (last two pictures) It ended up being shorter than I thought it would be, but that was okay with me, because it meant Trina was able to do the hike all by herself easily. If you zoom in on the photo of Bryan, you can see that he is holding rocks. he would have happily spent hours and hours picking up rocks and throwing them into the water. We finally put in him the backpack carrier so that we could keep going at a semi resonable pace (i.e. the almost 4 year old Katrina pace) After hiking, we went to one of the beaches in the area for a couple hours. After lunch it was time to wave goodbye to the ocean and head West. We drove to Whiskeytown - just outside Redding. What a beautiful lake.

Friday morning we spent a few hours at the lake beach until lunch time, then we loaded up and started the drive to Winnemucca. once again, I didn't do my figuring correctly - Google maps should take some responsibility here too - but regardless of who's fault it is, the hour count was off and we didn't get into Winnemucca until just after 10:00 pm! Luckily we were taking it easy on this final night of the trip and we were staying at the Winner's Hotel and Casino. (cheapest one at $42 per night) Even though it was so late - I filled up the tub with nice hot water and soaked and soaked! I was FILTHY! even after my long soak, there was still some dirt in the cracks of my hand and fingers that I couldn't get out.

Saturday the kids were so excited to watch TV! (we have a TV that we use to watch movies, but we live right on the east bench and we can't get any TV reception with paying for cable. Since I think most of what is on TV is trash - and since i know it is such a time waster, we don't pay for cable. SO - my kids are always amazed at TV - the whole thing is still a mystery for them - commercials, they can't "rewind it" or "watch it again." We let them watch cartoons until 9:30, then we hit the road again.

Finally - after way too many hours in the car - we were HOME!!!!