Redwood National Park

6/28/2010
Left the KOA at Klamath Falls, around 9:20am.  Had an uneventful drive to Medford by way of crater Lake Highway.  Luckily, this route did not include the rim drive around Crater Lake.Stopped along the highway for lunch.  I drove in the morning and Esther took over after lunch.  We stopped on Us199 coming into Crescent City because there were a bunch of cars already pulled to the side.  Esther was able to find a spot long enough to hold the truck and 5th Wheel.  We stopped at a trail head which had a self-directed tour of an old growth Redwood forest.  The trees where huge.  Some were 320ft high and I saw one fallen tree that was greater than 20 feet  in diameter.  The trees seemed to go up forever.  We walked about half of the 1/2 mile tour.  Most of the ground was covered by ferns that grow readily at the base of redwood trees.  It was very cool in the forest.

Root System of Fallen Redwood

 Esther standing in a crevice of an "old growth" Redwood

We then drove into Crescent City, CA where we found an RV park to stay the night.  While setting up, we both got cold.  Must have been down to 62.  We then drove through the Redwood National and State Park.  This route follows Us101 along the coast of the Pacific Ocean.  Esther wanted to stop every 300 feet to look at the Ocean.  I finally had to tell her that while the ocean was pretty, it was not one of the things we planned to see.  It just wasn't on the list.  We were both disappointed by the Redwood National Park after seeing the "old growth" forest on Us199.  We drove through Prairie Creek National and State forest.  There were a lot of big trees  but none compared to the "old growth" forest we had seen earlier.  When we got back to Crescent City it was down to 56F.  We ate at the Grotto on the Pacific Ocean.  Food was good, service was adequate,and the bill was high.

Esther wanted a Romantic walk on the beach.  Here is a picture of me being romantic at 56F.Esther and I both about broke our legs getting down to the beach.  Romance  must have a different meaning when your over 60.  We did laugh a lot and at our age those endorphins help.

6/29/2010
Esther took a picture of our campsite next to a large Redwood.  We got away early about 7:40am, but the drive back through Redwood National Park was tedious and took an extremely long time because clouds had rolled in from the ocean and covered most of the road so you could only see about 20 feet in front of you.  Since I was driving it wasn't that big a handicap for me, as I can only see a little further than that anyway.  But it did take us almost 3 hours to cover about 100 miles.  After lunch Esther took the wheel and had curvy roads that went either up or down, never straight or flat.  We stopped at "Big Foot" Gift Shop (spell that tourist trap".  We opted to not take the road that parallels US 101 which contains the Avenue of the Giants, but at times the road re-joins 101 and we got to see the trees that were actually on 101.  About five Esther convinced me that we had traveled enough even though we are still 255 miles from Yosemite.  We stopped at the KOA at Petaluma, CA which is about 30 miles north of San Francisco.  Hopefully we will make Yosemite tomorrow and can stay Wednesday and Thursday nights.  Would love to stay Friday, but with the 4th of July holiday starting then, I doubt we will be able to find accommodations.