Friday, July 17, 2009

July 16 - California Redwoods



We had breakfast in foggy Eureka in a small bakery. The baker said that he was from San Jose and it took him about a year and a half to get used to the fact that the sun didn't ever shine here. We pondered over what would make him make the move, but San Jose was pretty hot. Maybe a bakery was for sale?

After driving less than 10 miles we were in the sun and the temperature was rising. We drove into the Redwood National and State parks. On Highway 101 you drive through the redwood forrests, but we stopped at 2 of the 5 visitor centers. We went to the second visitor's center to take a one hour walk with a guide. The Redwood trees can live 2000 years, drink 300 gallons of water a day, and have up to 12 inches of bark. They can also fuse together. Pictures really don't give a proper scale, but I tried.   

Parts of the prairie are reserved for the Elk that live there. We saw three bucks and two or three cows. The cows were lying in the grass, so it was hard to see them. One buck was standing, so we got a good picture of him, but the other two were lying down, so we could see only the tops of the antlers. On the hike, the guide did point out some of the trees where the bucks had rubbed the velvet off of their antlers. In the fall, they use the same trees to rub their fur when it gets itchy from shedding.
Then we drove to an overlook point for a view of the ocean. We read and were told at the visitor's center that we may see whales, sea lions, and other such sea animals. The picture below is what we saw
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We drove on to see how far north we could drive for the evening. We stopped in Klamath for lunch. Klamath is a town people went to during the gold rush, but now I think
it may be a reservation. As we continued on, we drove past this one cliff where we were above the fog. We got a glimpse of the view of the ocean and it was so cool because we were looking down on the fog above the ocean, and we could see only a ocean of fog. Fog as far as the eye could see. It was so cool. But there was road construction going on at that spot, so we couldn't pull over to look. We were hoping to see it again, but we didn't.


A little after 7 p.m., after 10 nights, temperatures from 105 to 53, 1355 miles, we left California and entered Oregon. We stopped at a Walmart to replace some more missing clothes, and then stopped for the night at our hotel. Jerry, Molly and Brooke went swimming, I did laundry, and Blair enjoyed a little bit of alone time in the room.

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