I was up at 5:50am to start getting things ready. I warmed up the oatmeal I had been stockpiling for the last 2 days. Got the girls up at 6am, and they did not want to wake up yet. We ate and got the car packed. Just as I was walking in from putting the last bag in the car and closing it up confident that we would be getting out before 7am like we had hoped, I heard a crash. Phoebe had accidentally knocked one of Pete’s stools over, and it landed square on his glass art plate. Jada and I were mortified since it’s likely irreplaceable. While I was cleaning up the pieces, I ran my finger along one of the edges and cut a big slice in my right ring finger from the first to second knuckle. The blood was everywhere. I ran into the bathroom to rinse it under cold water, and I had Jada bring me a paper towel and ice to stop the bleeding. Jada vacuumed up the rest of the shards, picked up the big pieces, cleaned my blood off the wall and carpet, and wrote Pete a note about what had happened. She found someone in the parking lot that said El Camino Hospital was the closest. We plugged it in the Garmin, and Jada drove us over there. We were in by 7:20am, and I was back in the ER by 7:30. It was still pretty slow that morning, thankfully. I ended up with 4 stitches and had to get my tetanus booster. They also gave me a pertussis booster along with the tetanus and said I might feel crummy later. I explained that we were camping later that night, and they gave me some band-aids and rubber gloves to help keep dirt out. If there’s a sharp object, I’ll find it.
We were on our way again by 8:50am. Record time for a hospital visit. It was amazingly smooth sailing through San Francisco. Not bad traffic into the city. We drove over the Golden Gate Bridge in heavy fog, and we made the decision to go ahead and take the hour hit and stop at Muir Woods anyway. It cost $5/adult to get in. We hiked a .5 mile nature trail while the girls filled out their Jr. Ranger booklets. One of the most interesting things we learned was when Redwoods die, they send out runners from their roots around them with new trees. Many of them will grow up around the original trunk forming a tree circle, or “family circle” as they are known at the park. After many hundreds of years, they trunks will all grow together. The girls got a sticker, a badge pin (though it doesn’t say Muir Woods on it), and they’ll get a certificate in the mail too. We were on the road driving highway 101 again by 11:30am. In this part of California, 101 is not right along the coast. That’s highway 1. Though it does eventually make it back in Eureka, CA which is like a larger Lincoln City, OR. My arm was getting stiff, and I was getting tired, so Jada took over driving duties about 90 miles from camp. Though I’m glad I did do the driving today too just to keep the injuries from getting too stiff.
On the way into Redwoods, we stopped off at the Kuchel Visitor Center which is right off highway 101 at the southern entrance to the park at 5:30pm. The girls picked up their Jr. Ranger papers, and we took off again since we still had a long way to go. We skipped the scenic drives and seaside pull offs. It was very foggy for much of the drive, but we were driving through the redwoods in many places. It was only in the upper 50’s for temperature, but at least there was no rain in the forecast. We finally arrived at the campground at 7pm. We made our way to camp site 10 which has it’s very own tall Redwood in it. We thought we were out of bear country, but they are present here too, so we packed everything into the bear box at our site. The bathrooms had showers, but we aren’t planning on using them. We found a plump banana slug while setting up the tent too. Jada made dinner while Ellen and I put up the tent. I wore one surgical glove over my stitched hand while putting up the tent. We were all done with dinner by 8pm. Both of the girls were exhausted, and then seemed to fall asleep pretty fast. Jada and I were close behind.
August 6: Redwoods National Park, CA (85 miles)
It was dark late, so we slept in until after 6am. Ellen didn’t ask to go to the bathroom until around 6:40am. It was in the mid-50‘s. At that point, I went ahead and got up to make eggs for breakfast. We haven’t been able to find a place for waste water, so cleanup has consisted of wipes. (Though we asked a ranger later, and found out where we can dump waste water.) We were driving back south by 8:30am towards Klamath. We were looking for a tree that we heard you can drive through. None of them are within the park itself since they’re all privately owned. It cost us $5 to drive through. I had Jada get out to take a picture of us driving through, and then I went back around to wait in line to drive through again with her in the car to video it. Other people just came up and drove through once...suckers. We heard that yesterday there were 25 cars waiting to drive through the tree, I am so glad we always try to hit the popular places early.
We continued south to the Elk Prairie where we saw 5 elk just sitting on the side of the road on our way to the Prairie Creek Visitor Center. When we got to the visitor center, we found out a Jr. Ranger program was just starting called Trees. The girls had fun creating a tree guide using leaf rubbings that they could use to identify trees in the park. Then they went on a hike around the Revelation trail at the visitor center to put their guides into action. Jada and I followed behind at a respectful distance to read the interpretive signs and learn about the forest. We got to see a chimney which is a tree still standing upright that had been hollowed out by fire all the way up. It was really neat. The girls got their California State Parks Jr. Ranger badges which are separate from the National Parks, but the activities still count towards the National Parks. The Redwoods State parks had been created many years before the National Parks came along, so they cover a bigger surface area than the NP’s.
From there, we drove on the Newton B. Drury Scenic Drive which went through many of the big redwood groves. At the end of this, we turned off onto the Coastal Scenic roadway which was more of a rough and unpaved road running along the coast. The fog was really heavy so we couldn’t see much of the ocean until near the mouth of the Klamath river. Here we saw the Oreganos rock and the sister rock along the sand bar at the mouth. These are part of the Yurok tribal stories as protectors of the river. While at that overlook, we also watched some whales or a whale out in the ocean. We saw the spouts from their blow holes, and occasionally their backs above the water. We moved on from there to stop along a beach near Lagoon Creek. I walked back along a coast trail to a parking lot we had past that had a bathroom while the girls played in the sand. The fog made it seem like there the sea stacks only went up so far and then stopped. By the time I got back from the bathroom, we were ready to push on north again to the Hiouchi National Park visitor center which is only just across highway 199 from the Jed Smith Campground where we’re staying.
At this VC the girls got their Jr. Ranger patches. Ellen continued to improve on her “Fantastic Field Guide” by adding how to identify trees by pine cones. Then we came over to the Jed Smith VC where I picked up some firewood and another sticker. After a snack, we walked down to the beach of the Smith River which runs behind our campground. There were people swimming in it, but the temperature couldn’t have been more than 70 degrees. The sun was nice and pleasant. I tried to teach the girls how to skip stones, but mostly they just chucked them into the river. The river was really slow moving. It was just nice to sit there for a while. We walked part of the camp’s nature trail on the way back, but opted to cut it short so Jada could dig a splinter out of Ellen’s finger. If there’s wood, Ellen will find a way to get a splinter just like I will cut myself on any sharp edge.
I started the fire, and Jada made dinner. We had chicken with stir fry vegetables and rice with strawberries and Jiffy Pop for dessert. Ellen and Phoebe then brushed their teeth and went to bed. We put them to bed around 6pm. I’m so glad the sun is now setting so much earlier. Jada and I stayed up updating the journal and downloading photos and roasting marshmallows over the lovely scented pine fire. We read our books, and Jada kept checking her watch. At 8:15pm, we had had our fill of mosquitoes and turned in.