National Parks: Redwoods

This past weekend we started what we are sure will be a very fun and exciting lifelong challenge: visit all 58 National Parks.


We set out on Friday after work for the coast.  Since we live in a county that has more cows than people, there is no direct road to the coast (where's the 57 freeway when you need it!?), so we drove up into Oregon and back down to the Northern California Coast and the Giant Redwoods... oh, and Graci came too :-)

In case you've never seen a BIG tree, they truly mean Giant Redwoods... it's not just a gimmick to attract visitors... these things are huge.  Here's a picture of Graci on the road next to these beasts...

  We're talking 300 plus feet in the air, with trunks big enough to drive a car through.  We camped in the Jedidiah Smith State Park in the driest site we could find.  The rain was relentless, but it seemed fitting and soothed us to sleep.

The next morning we awoke to even more rain, and decided against a wet soggy hike.  Instead, we chose to drive down to the local tourist trap... a huge magnificent paper maché homage to Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, "Babe".


On the way, we stopped for coffee and I (craig) burned my mouth, badly.  I still haven't quite figured out what steam indicates.  A quick jaunt into the local drug store for something cold revealed the unexpected price difference between ice and klondike bars.  Ice was more expensive, so...

What would I do for a Klondike Bar at 10am?  Burn your mouth on coffee.


Arriving at the "Trees of Mystery" was a sight to behold.  Girlscouts everywhere... very cute, but sadly, no cookies.  I thought they carried them around in holsters or something.  I guess not.


In case you ever find yourself on the receiving end of the question: "will you please take our picture in front of Paul Bunyan?"  We think it's safe to assume that the subject would like to have Mr. Bunyan in the picture... not so of the ranger who graciously braved the rain to take our picture with good ol' Paul.

We can't blame him though, it was kind of a deluge out there.  He made up for it with his perfect capture of us and Babe... but we have to ask, was the anatomically correct Ox really necessary?

That's a framer.


On our way out of town, we stopped at the Ranger station to get our National Park passport stamp (that's right) and made friends with Ranger Nate.  We told him about our quest to visit all 58, and he told us of a book that we must buy.  As Jenny thumbed through the book, she quickly realized that it had been bound with the cover upside down!  We took it as a sign that this book was meant for us, and Ranger Nate gave us a 50% discount.  Woo hoo!!

So we headed back home with new book in hand, more excited about this journey then we were when we started.  If this weekend is any indication, we're in for quite a ride.

1 down.  57 to go...