2 - AVENUE OF THE GIANTS

First off, let me tell you why I am doing this blog again this year. A blog is a lot of work and takes a lot of time that I would rather be spending doing other things, like sitting in the sun. 



When we get home from one of these trips, I always take the blog and make it into a hard covered book, pictures, verbiage and all. This has turned out to be an essential activity for us. 



It seems we are getting older and if it were not for the picture/blog books, we couldn't remember where we went or what we saw. It's sad when "Senior Moments" stretch into "Senior Everyday, All Days." 



So we parked the coach in a really nice park in Red Bluff, California. Then Tuesday we took the winding, twisting, narrow Highway 36 west over the mountains toward the coast in the Jeep.



We saw a road sign that said, in essence, "You're NUTS if you are driving a large vehicle or pulling a trailer on this road," but, of course, in fewer words. We shortly understood the warning. 



However, the east side of the mountain, consisted of a lot of ranches. At one point we followed a pickup pulling a horse trailer for many miles. In other words, the local ranchers pretty much ignore the sign and still manage to survive.



It was a beautiful drive. Driving this road in Springtime would be breath-taking with green mountain sides and purple mountains in the distance.

From the road on the mountain top we looked across a fog bank at the snow covered mountains far away.

Then we dropped down and drove through some of the fog.

The road snaked around the mountains and through dense forests.

There were lots of tight S-curves to negotiate. At least WE weren't pulling a trailer...or driving our 40 foot motorhome!

Since it had taken 3-1/2 hours to drive over to the coast, I checked the weather report to see what we could expect weather-wise while we were there. The report was for sunny today, but rainy tomorrow. 

Since we were going to be staying in a motel on the coast for the night, we decided it would be best to check out the redwoods as soon as we arrived and do other things tomorrow in case of rain. Good choice.

We drove to the Avenue of the Giants. 

And Giants they were!

Our first stop was at Drury/Chaney Grove. These are old growth Coastal Redwoods. They can live to be over 2,000 years old and withstand fires, floods, and insects. These groves have never been logged. Their average age is 400-600 years old. 

We walked the path through the giant redwoods.

The ground cover looked like millions of clover leaves, but I was told it was sorrel that in the spring is so thick it looks like velvet with tiny flowers.

Looking up was a bit hard on the necks but we tried to see the tops of the trees.

There were ferns everywhere, including on the huge downed tree trunks.

The size of the trees was amazing. This is me at the bottom of one...failing my job as a Tree Hugger. Others were  even larger.

It was nearly dark on the forest floor. Only occasionally did the sun peek through.

Some of the trees had grown together, making them even more gigantic.

I took pictures of one of these huge trees that a local couple told us had fallen just three weeks ago. However, it is so dark on the forest floor that it is hard to see in the pictures I took. 

Another one had fallen previously, landing over an old downed stump, resulting in a curved effect to the newly fallen tree.

This is the other end of it. It's hard to give you an idea of the size of these monster trees, but note the far end raises up to meet the "bend" in the fallen tree.

Then we drove down through more of the forest with redwoods growing on either side of the road.

The trees have grown so close to the road and often had reflectors on them to keep drivers from hitting them. It was an amazing drive.

When packing the RV for this trip, I took along the last package of our favorite clam chowder from Georgie's, our favorite seafood restaurant over on the Oregon coast. We had it for dinner the first night out...all of it!

Don has been teasing me ever since about not giving him more of it. 

After our drive through the redwoods we went to a local steak house for dinner. Don said the steak was really good and he would have the leftovers for dinner the next night. I told him I would have the leftover clam chowder from the night before that I had hidden away. 

He told me he would be able to forget if I cheated on him but not for stealing his clam chowder. Thirty years of marriage has come to near blows over clam chowder!?!?! Why do I not really believe him?

The weather report for the trip back to the RV was correct. Rain. And lots of it. We had breakfast in Eureka where a lady told me you couldn't pay her enough to drive Highway 36 (our route the day before) due to the logging trucks on the narrow, curvy road. We didn't see any loggers, but we did see a lone bicyclist riding on that mountain highway. (What a show off!)

However, we took another, safer road back...through the driving rain. Hence, there are no pictures of the trip back to the RV park. This road would also have been a beautiful drive in nice weather. Maybe next time.

Tomorrow is Christmas Day. We will be driving to Sacramento and we will celebrate there. After that, we head to Red Rock Canyon State Park in the Mojave Desert for a couple days.