Trees of Mystery

On Saturday we visited the "Trees of Mystery", a commercial entity, located about 4 miles down the road from us. I had my doubts about the place at first, as there was a huge Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox statue (?) out front of the entrance. They looked as if they were made of papier mache and Paul had a silly, automated wave and a recording welcoming visitors to the park. Anyway, upon entrance, we found the obligatory junk store selling trinkets and souvenirs. We paid $11 per person (senior entrance fee...perks of getting older, etc.) to ride a gondola, which was like a ski lift, up to the summit of a large, heavily-timbered hill. I say "hill" because it was 752 feet above sea level, so it looks like a big mountain but really isn't. However it is STEEP. The lifts looked like they were well maintained, at any rate.

We boarded and were fortunate to have a car all to ourselves. It stopped several times during the trip for photo ops but I got a little nervous just knowing how far it was to the ground. When we reached the summit, we could see all the way to the ocean, which you see in the last picture above. The opposite direction is seen in the second picture. As we were viewing the sites, a Mennonite couple was standing near us, and as I heard her speaking, I knew she was from Pennsylvania because she sounded just like my mother-in-law, Chris (Hi, Mom!) We struck up a conversation with them and they were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary that day. Nice folks.

We contemplated taking the steep trail back down but I didn't think my knees could take it, plus I wasn't wearing hiking boots, so we decided to take the gondola back down. Slipping and falling can ruin your whole day.

After we arrived safely on terra firma, we walked around the trails. I just can't stop taking (a) tree pictures and (b) beach pictures. So I took more tree pictures. There were those brown and yellow signs everywhere, such as "Seen in Ripley's Believe It Or Not". The picture looking straight up at the top of the trees was called the Cathedral Trees, coastal redwoods. The picture with several trees growing at even intervals was called the Candelabra Trees, and these trees were growing out of an almost horizontal tree trunk across the trail (we walked under it). I didn't see what kind of tree that was but I don't think it was redwood.

The final section was the cheese-iest...It was a "Paul Bunyan" walk with all kinds of wood carvings and recorded messages depicting the life of Paul Bunyan. I did relent and take one picture, the squirrel you see in the final picture below. I suppose it was done with a chain saw, which is quite a feat, if you ask me.

When we finished the trails, we went back to the gift shop to visit the "End of the Trail" museum, a native American museum. It was interesting and there were displays, all well-taken-care-of, featuring relics from tribes all over the United States. There was also a small museum store but I resisted buying anything. Sometimes I'm just not in the mood to buy! All told, it was a nice place, despite human attempts to exploit nature.

After we got home, we decided we'd just walk down to the beach, not going ON the beach. Well, that changed, and we couldn't resist going back out on the beach to watch the crashing waves again. We got home, tired from another good day of sightseeing.

Yesterday we decided we'd better go to Crescent City, about 20 miles from here, to buy groceries, since on Monday (today) there's supposed to be rain and storms. (Well, today's Monday and there's no storms...yet!) We drove through more beautiful redwoods and it was amazing and so beautiful. However, I didn't take any pictures because like Gary says, there's only so many tree pictures you can take! We went to a restaurant called Wing Wah in CC. I made the mistake of ordering lemon chicken and when it arrived, it was deep fried, covered with a sweet lemon sauce. I ate it anyway, along with an egg roll and fried rice, because I was famished, and because I had to pay for it! When we got home, we walked down to the beach and onto the beach AGAIN, and I still gained half a pound this morning! *sigh* When will I ever learn to ask about the dishes I order in a restaurant.

Tomorrow is "weigh-in day" on my Weight Watchers, so I do hope I can behave myself today and stick to the plan.

We're just doing some laundry today, getting ready for the trip on Wednesday. I really like to get everything done before we take off. We'll be going to Oregon to visit some nice folks, fellow RV'ers, we met in Georgetown, TX. They have a house! I'm looking forward to visiting them.

We'll keep you posted on our adventures, and thanks for reading my blog!