We left day before yesterday morning, heading north toward Oregon, following Highway 101. I cannot begin to tell you how beautiful the drive was. I have heard of the Redwoods all my life, but never dreamed how tall, graceful and majestic they are. We drove through several groves where the road narrowed to two lanes, and in many cases, the big redwoods were almost at the edge of the highway. The road was very curvy and all you could see when going around a curve was another huge trunk. I also didn't take too many pictures through the front window because it rained on us almost the whole trip and I didn't want to get raindrops in the picture! The trees were so big and tall, I would have needed a wide angle lens to capture the whole tree. I'll take pictures of them later, because we're at the edge of Redwoods National Park. On the other side of us is the Klamath River, and we are also on the Yurok Indian Reservation.

By the time we arrived here yesterday, we had seen several signs advertising "drive through trees". We learned that yes, indeed, you can drive through them...for a fee! So we didn't bite. I think those are the Sequoias. Anyway, we got here yesterday and Gary graciously set up the satellite dish, despite having slower-than-dialup wifi here at Kamp Klamath. So now I can upload photos to my blog and facebook.

We're about a mile from the beach, so we put on our hiking boots and walked down the road to the beach. It is a beautiful, cloudless day here, but by the time we got to the beach area, the wind had picked up into what I'd call a gale. The beach is at the mouth of the Klamath River, and we could hear the roar of the surf. We continued walking until we reached the summit of the small peninsula which separated a fresh water lagoon from the ocean.

What huge waves! The wind, like I said, was strong and cold, and several times I thought it was going to blow me over. We took many pictures of the big breakers and I was a little nervous that the tide might be coming in. I didn't want to turn my back on the ocean very long, because the waves were roaring and unpredictable. We finally arrived at a group of rocks up the beach and got into a little shelter from the wind, snapping pictures all along the way. It was funny because sometimes we'd get between the rocks and it would be like a wind tunnel.

We started back, and thought the haze we saw was sea spray. No, not exactly. It was beach sand picked up by the strong wind, and we had to walk a little closer to the water to try to get out of the blowing sand. I was getting even more nervous about being close to the water. After leaning into the wind and struggling to walk, we finally were able to get back to the big rock where we entered the beach, and walked back up to the road. I had to laugh, thinking of how we were laying on the beach on a blanket at Manhattan Beach with my son and his wife, listening to the surf. We surely wouldn't be doing that here!

We began the trek back, and unfortunately, I didn't have my wide angle lens on the camera, so I couldn't give a perspective on the tall trees in the forest beside the road. There were many fallen trees which were covered by moss and a myriad of ferns growing all along the road. We saw many plants which resembled Mayapples, and still don't know what they were. I was a little apprehensive and kept watching for bears! We finally arrived back at the RV and had some lunch, tired but happy that we'd actually been that close to the pounding surf...and survived! Believe it or not, the wind is now light. I suppose it's always windy next to the water up here. Oh, and I've got some beach sand to clean out of my camera!

Well, that's about it for today. Tomorrow we'll go hiking in the national park and hopefully get some good pictures.