AWE, The Redwoods!

No words.

The Redwoods have always been awe-inspiring to me. It is truly one of my favorite places on Earth. I always remember some of my first big camping trips when I was kid at Jedediah Smith State Park among the ancient giants. I felt such pure happiness and excitement to be able to share the experience and grandeur of these trees with Gal, Girl and Dog. Hearing Girl tell me “The Redwoods are the coolest things ever” and “this is one of my favorite places” makes me one proud Guy. The time spent in the presence of these trees, hiking with my family down fairy tale like paths, dropping beats with our sporks while free-styling awful lyrics and rhymes around our nightly fires (Girl’s idea and it was a blast), biking loops around our Mill Creek campground and relaxing on massive old growth stumps catching rays of Redwood filtered light into our campsite was a magical time that we will reminisce about for years to come.

Always hard to capture the scale of these living giants, but we think this kind of shows it!

We camped in Del Norte State Park at the aforementioned Mill Creek campground. Jedediah Smith was totally booked, but I was pleasantly surprised by Mill Creek. The forest was mostly second generation growth, but there were definitely some spectacular old growth trees. The stumps of the ancients around the campground with the giant ferns and Sitka Spruces really made us feel like we were in the land of dinosaurs. The campsites here were awesome, there were many really private sites but we were able to land the best of them all. We got site 109, which is typically used and reserved for research scientists. We had more room than we knew what to do with under a canopy of trees that were as giant as any other ancient grove.

 

The sweetest of sites

Fun hike off the beaten path

I’m pretty sure I drove Gal and Girl crazy by constantly pointing and saying “Wow, look at that tree” on our incredible hiking adventures, my neck is still sore from all that looking up. I have Redwood bark stained t-shirts and shorts from hugging as many giants as could. Until next time Redwoods! We have been diverted a bit on our adventure due to some crazy West Coast wildfires. We were planning on a few nights near Ashland, OR and on towards Mt. Hood. We ended up staying an extra night in our special Redwoods spot and went to Portland to visit Gals sister and Girls awesome aunt Moya and some childhood friends of Guys. Thanks for the hospitality Mark and Margarita, so fun to see great old friends and family!

Rainy day at the beach in Crescent City didn’t stop us from having one of many beach days after hiking!

Mount Lassen and my first fish

Hi Blog followers! Liv here (aka Girl). This post is about Mount Lassen. I hope you like it!

When I first got to Mount Lassen I noticed that the trees were mossy. I loved the sound of the river rushing. It sounded like it was going really fast. I’ve never seen blackish and orange-ish lava rocks before. I learned that these rocks are in the area because a long time ago there was a volcano that erupted. When the lava cooled, the rocks were formed. The lava rocks had lots of holes in them.

We went on a really cool hike and after the hike we went down to the river to cool off and fish. It took a lot of casts, but I caught my first fish! But the truth was, I was really creeped out by the fish once it caught my line. It was massive! You’d be surprised! My fish was one foot long. My dad held it, and I did my best to stay away from him. My heart was beating so fast and I was whimpering to myself. It was cool to catch my first fish, but scary to see the fish flopping around.

The morning we were leaving I peaked out of my tent window. I saw two big animals. At first I thought they were coyotes but they turned out to be jackrabbits. They were big with huge, tall ears. They had a little, fluffy tail.

I loved this place. I wish we could have stayed another day.

Girl’s first stop

Hi blog followers! I’m Liv, aka Girl. I’m really excited to share this post with you guys. I hope you like it.

I just started my two month road trip! The first place we went was Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Wyoming. The warm, murky water at the Flaming Gorge was kind of scary. I couldn’t even see my own feet in the water. As I brushed passed sticks they felt like fish. As I was in there, I got over my fish fear. Then I dunked myself! I was so proud of myself, I’ll be proud of what I did in the future!

Flaming Gorge,WY

Sunset from campsite 22

A pass-through spot for our first night off the road turned out to be a nice little gem. We camped at Firehole Canyon Campground, South on the 191 from Rock Springs. It was Friday evening, (on Labor Day weekend) and the campground was pretty empty. We had a great spot, site #22, with a pathway down to the lake. Girl, Guy and Dog swam and chased sticks (all 3 of us) while Gal was still trying to recuperate from a cold.

Word to the wise, this campground was great, but had it been full it would not have been such a great find. Unbeknownst to us when we picked this spot, 2 sites share one spot. So 20 and 22 are RIGHT next to each other. Our fire rings were maybe 6′ apart. If you came with a couple of families this would be great, though we prefer much more privacy and space with strangers. As much as we love people, we also love to love people from a distance while we are relaxing at camp.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Great start to our journey! We are looking forward to seeing and experiencing our beautiful country and will update when we can. If we are slacking on our posts, be certain there will be an influx in November!