Day 11: CALIFORNIA! The Redwoods....

We got an early start packing up the trailer and were on the road by 9:00 a.m. We had planned to scout out the town of Brookings a little more as we had been told a retired coast gaurd gentleman had purchased the lighthouse there and convereted it to his home. Due to the extensive fog and some whiney, tired little girls we decided to just get into California and experience something new. It was a FOGGY drive!! We headed past our camp ground to the Trees of Mystery.....

The girls by Babe the Blue Ox!

Norah and Brett by Paul Bunyan! (Well by his foot!)

The Cathedal....AMAZING!

Check out that BIG TREE!

Aww....the girls!

The Trees of Mystery was GREAT! Well worth the money. We saw 12 trees growing out of one tree, a lightening bolt tree (shaped like a lightening bolt!), the Cathedral trees, a tunnel tree, and some amazing wood carvings. At the peek of the hike we took a gondola ride to a much higher point where you could look out over the tree tops and take in the peace of some of God's beauty! It truly was breath taking and a wonderful place to visit. Once we completed the tour there was a Native American museum, which was neat as we are reading the "Little House on the Prairie" series right now! The girls selected a souvenir to place on their shelves to remember this day!

Lighthouse.....

....NO ACCESS!!!

On our way through Crescent City we saw a sign for a lighthouse. As we have learned so much about lighthouses and have seen everyone thus far, Brett and I decided an extra stop was necessary! So we followed the signs and came to a nice rocky beach. We headed toward the lighthouse and quickly realized we would NOT be touring this one.....it's on an island surrounded by heavy crashing waves! This lighthouse is only accessible 2-3 hours a day at most when the tide is at it's lowest - CRAZY! I took some pictures through the fog to give you an idea of what we saw!

Jedediah Smith State Park

We arrived mid afternoon to our next camp ground. It felt so different to be surrounded by HUGE trees, as we have been camping so close to the beach for a week! It is VERY beautiful here and it only took 2 minutes before I had my first mosquito bite! We set up camp and took a trip over to the information center to learn about the hiking opportunities and gather more information. During our walk back to the campsite we wandered down to the Smith River and determined there would be swimming tomorrow as long as it's warm enough!

After a delicious spaghetti dinner we played some games, enjoyed the fire and went to a presentation by the ranger. They offer free hot cocoa and light a nice fire at the site of the slide show presentation! It was GREAT! We learned a lot about the animals and foliage here and found out that tomorrow morning should be excellent tide pooling - SO our goal is to be on the road by 7:00 a.m. to explore the tide pools in Crescent City.......sea stars, anemones here we come! Then for LOTS of hiking!!!