California Trip - The Redwoods

Days 4, 5 & part of 6:
After we had visited all of Andy's mission that he wanted to show us, we headed over to the Redwood National Forest. Holy cow, can I just saw, IT WAS AWESOME! I've never seen anything like it, nor was I prepared to see it. The size of these trees are unbelievable, the pictures we took don't do them justice, but you can kind of see the comparison with us standing next to them. I thought we had big trees on our mountain, but after seeing the Redwoods it makes our trees look tiny.
At first we were going to head up north to the bigger Redwood forest, but after stopping at visitor's center, the guy told us that to see the best trees we would really be better off to head to the Humboldt National Forest where we could see the Avenue of the Giants. We were so happy we listened to him. I don't know what the other place would have had, but Humboldt had everything we were looking for.

Here is 2 days of pictures all mixed in together

Andy feeding Dodger lunch in the truck


Some of the tress had this awesome vine stuff growing up them. It looked so enchanting to me.




We were able to actually camp in the redwoods. Some of the coolest trees we saw were right by our campsite.


I think we drug him around a little past his limit. But he was such a good baby most of the time.


Say CHEESE!


Dad, me & Dodger. This was the 3rd largest tree in the world. It was like 370 feet tall (a football field is 300 ft.). It fell down a few years ago, but this shows you how thick it was.


The root system on these is kinda crazy. Instead of growing down like most tress, they grow out and are all intertwined with each other.


Daddy & Dodger


We are standing in the middle of one tree. They can be burned and rotted out clear through to the other side and still stay alive and keep growing.


The Founders Tree was 346 feet high and almost 13 feet in diameter. CRAZY!


See, were giant too!


One day we drove on a scenic loop tour that took us past the coast and through some really cute little towns. We stopped in one at a cheese factory and they had about 30 different cheeses you could sample. Don't worry, we sampled almost all of them. The roads were so windy though that I ended up getting a little car sick and had to go to sleep to keep from throwing up.





trying to snuggle up with grandpa





Andy found this piece of sea weed/rope stuff. He thought he should make a bullwhip out of it.




I felt like I was in a scene from a movie.


It was so cold by the ocean, but we couldn't resist walking over to check it all out.


Andy's mom found an awesome piece of drift wood that she brought home to make into a lamp.


Grilling steak outside the door of the trailer while it rained.


Cooking French Toast in the Redwoods.


It's hard to tell, but Andy's parents and Dodger and I are walking along the road in this picture.





Dodger ended up falling asleep on this hike. Which is probably a good thing because it started raining, and this way we could cover him without a fight.


That's Andy standing in the middle of a tree that had been in a fire.




We barely made it on our hike to down to the Eel river before it started to rain. Then we were back under the branches of the trees and were shielded a little from the rain.


HI big eyes!


They were just massive!!


We are standing by the base of ONE tree.




That is Dodger and I at the bottom.


They made this tree trunk into a cute little play house.


We were supposed to pay to get into this little tourist trap, but no one was there to take our money, so we were able to see it for free.


Driving through the tree. Our truck wouldn't fit so I took a picture of someone else driving through it.


This was right by our campsite.


It's always good to be clean!





Dodger look up!


This was again right by our campsite. This tree was actually right outside our door.




HOLY COW!!


Andy and his dad had to go with the Camp Host to find us a campsite. Andy was pretty excited to ride in the little car. haha


Our first visit to the Redwoods