Redwoods

We took off this morning, headed for the Redwoods National Park. We drove down the coastal highway(?), which was more like a narrow little trail with potholes so deep you'd break an axle, should you hit one. One of the first places we stopped was the farmhouse on the left. It is on the coast and it is NOT a farmhouse. During World War II, it was a radar station and was disguised as a farmhouse to prevent the enemy from recognizing it. It's been kept up nicely, I think.

We then headed on down the coast and started to get into the redwoods. The fog was rolling in, and most of the pictures we took at that time didn't turn out too well, due to the fog. However, we continued on exploring and came to the Prairie Creek State Park, another part of the redwoods. The trees you see in the pictures above were all taken there, as the sun had come out brilliantly. We walked around the trails through the trees and almost got a crick in our necks from looking up so much. Most of the pictures I took were STRAIGHT UP! Talk about feeling small! The tallest redwood known is 385 feet tall. The trunks are big, too, as you can see from the picture I took of Gary at the base of one of them. There was a wonderful article in National Geographic about the redwoods, and it said there's a whole 'nother ecosystem up there in the tree tops. Prairie Creek is known also for its elk, although there weren't any in the field where they were SUPPOSED to be. I guess nobody told them where to be today.

We drove down to another area where the elk were known to congregate, but didn't see any. We sat at a picnic table and ate a light lunch, then headed back, still appreciating the sunshine. We drove down to Klamath and went up high on a hill overlooking the mouth of the Klamath River and took some pictures there. Really, we were wanting to see some grey whales but we weren't able to spot any. However, I did see a large dark bird flying which I thought was a hawk, but after locating him in my binoculars, saw that he had a WHITE head and was carrying something in his claws. I believe it was a bald eagle. I wish I could have gotten a picture of him, but he was flying very fast and went out of view after just a glimpse.

We decided that we hadn't walked enough today, so we drove back down past the RV park to the beach where we went yesterday. Well, what a difference a day makes. The wind was still chilly but blowing at much less velocity than yesterday. Gary, artistic Gary, took the picture of the driftwood and the small sand dunes on the beach. We took many more pictures of the surf and found the waves to be every bit as big as they were yesterday. We looked for rocks and picked up quite a few, but really didn't have the foggiest idea what we were looking for. Gary would almost get caught in the sea foam and several times he did get his pants legs and shoes wet. We ran like little kids from the ever-encroaching water sneaking up the beach toward us.

So, we finally made it back home and then had to edit our photos and organize them. Thank heaven for digital photography! So convenient.

We're still reeling from the beauty and huge-ness of the redwoods. So amazing. We'll go out and explore some more tomorrow.