Redwoods National Park

Thanksgiving for us means a very long weekend to take advantage of! Last year we caught covid and had to abandon our plans, but this year we got to go!

We got up very early to catch the 6am flight to San Francisco. We got some breakfast at the airport and boarded on time. The flight was good with the smoothest landing I've ever felt. We got the fancy plane this time, even though it was only an hour long flight, and we had TV screens and full access to their movie selection.

We landed and caught the airtrain to the other terminal to wait for Asta. She was flying from Dallas and was arriving just after us. We all collected our luggage and then got the airtrain to the rental car centre. I'd booked with a budget company so we then had to get a shuttle to them which took us away into a business park in San Francisco. It worked out well though. I'd booked a "wild card" as I didn't mind what we got and it was the cheapest option. They brought out a 2023 Dodge Charger which Asta said was literally her dream car. She was too scared to start driving though, so it was up to me to get the bright red muscle car through the city.

It was a lot of fun to drive, especially when accelerating onto the freeway, although it was a lot wider than ours, so when I drove over the Golden Gate Bridge I had to concentrate very hard to stay in the very narrow lines.

We crossed over the bridge and stopped briefly to take some pictures, but the light was right in front of us, and we had a long way to go, so we didn't stop too long.

I drove us through the mountains and we stopped at a little town for coffee and a bathroom break. We swapped drivers and Asta drove us through Sonoma which is wine country and there were miles of vines and orange leaved trees.

We took a slight detour to get to the coast again through the Humbolt National Forest which was full of tall trees and twisty roads.

Our next stop was at another little town, but we struggled to find anything open on Thanksgiving afternoon that wasn't doing fancy sit down dinners. We walked through and then decided to drive on to the subway (which also turned out to be closed). But we found the grocery store was open for another hour, so we bought some sandwiches for lunch and some pasta pots and dessert pots for our dinner later.

It was then Mitchell's turn to drive and he drove us along the coastline. It was very beautiful and the sun was getting low in the sky so the light was lovely.

Once we turned inland again we were back to the forest, and at one point the road was blocked by a flock of wild turkeys! It was a Thanksgiving miracle, and they made their escape safely.

We dropped Asta off at her old host family's house, and we continued on to our cabin for the night. They were closed up for the night when we arrived, but they left the key and we checked in. It was cosy and clean and had a little table where we could eat our dinner. It had a bathroom to one side and a balcony which we couldn't really see in the dark, but the next morning we could stand on it and look out through the trees.

In the morning we picked up some breakfast burritos and a lunch from the grocery store in town before driving up to the national park. We ate on the beach and consulted the map we'd picked up from the visitor centre.

We then drove on to the first stop of the day. It was just a few miles, but went through the big trees, with plenty of ferns and moist mushrooms everywhere. Mitchell took a picture because they filmed part of Star Wars in this park (although a different section to where we were) and they also filmed Jurassic Park II here. It was very wild and so different to the California we knew.

Halfway around the trail there was a little waterfall, but the trees and the ferns were the main attraction on this first hike.

We then went back to the car and tried to go to our next stop, but took a wrong turn and decided to go do a route that was closer to our detour. It was a coastal route and took us along a cliff above the beach.

Just as we started, we saw a canine shape sat on the path before us. We stopped, not knowing if it was a coyote or worse, but it soon got up and ran and we saw its fuzzy white rear. The dog belonged to a couple who told us that at the end of the trail was a really good viewpoint, so we decided to do the whole length of the trail.

It was three miles each way, but I made Mitchell power through so we would make it back in plenty of time before dark.

At the end there was indeed a nice view next to the picnic area, and we stopped for lunch. There may or may not have been a man sun bathing in nothing but his newspaper at the viewpoint, but we didn't look too closely!

Just as we were leaving the picnic area to head back to the car, I saw another sign pointing in the opposite direction for a viewpoint. So, we decided to follow this, and we were glad we did! This viewpoint gave us a much better view of the sea below and all the big rocks sticking out. The coastline here was a lot different than it was down south.

That night we went out for dinner in the town of Trinidad. While we were waiting, it seemed like everybody knew everybody, and Terry positively caused an uproar when he arrived. We got a veggie burger and a local cider, which were good after a day of hiking in the cold, and then went to the grocery store for a bottle of wine.

For our second full day in Northern California, we drove back to the town where Asta was staying, and went to visit the farmers' market. It was very cute, a lot of people brought wicker baskets to carry around their fresh vegetables, and there were lots vegetarian options. We got some Nicaraguan tamales and pupusas and shared a whole wheat brownie. I also got a hot chocolate with lion's mane mushroom and lavender in it.

After that, we three went to the town of Eureka to visit the Sequoia Park Zoo. It was a very little zoo, but it did have rescue bears, raccoons (which we saw being fed) red pandas (which were asleep) and a petting zoo (where a little goat chose to snuggle with me).

But the main point of the zoo was the skywalk. They had built a long wooden trail which went into the trees across bridges and you could look all the way down to the floor or up into canopy. It was a lot longer than I thought it might be, and was definitely worth the trip as we were able to see the trees from a completely different perspective.

Even though it was still early, it was already getting dark and cold, so we went for more hot chocolate and all shared a big pretzel in the zoo cafe.

The zoo didn't take us very long, so afterwards we went into Old Town Eureka to see what was there. We started in an old chocolate factory/cafe/shop where they had samples to try and you could see the factory behind a glass wall at the back.

The town was on the coast so we looked at the water and walked along a little. We then went into the plaza where they were already decorated for Christmas. There were some cute shops selling gifts, used books and vintage clothing. We had a look around, but it was weirdly quiet and pretty much dark already, so we decided to go for dinner back in Asta's town in Arcata.

We had to wait for a table in the restaurant we'd chosen, so we went to look in some of the shops there too. We went to a tea shop where I got some eggnog white tea and a mushroom hat, and another used book store.

We had picked a Japanese restaurant, and the portions of our bento boxes were huge, with tempura, sushi, teriyaki, miso soup and mochi ice cream. We even had enough leftovers for dinner the next day!

We dropped Asta back at her house again and went back to our cabin. The next morning, we did the same as the day before and got hot breakfast sandwiches and lunch salad pots from the grocery store and headed into the national park.

This time we ate at Elk Prairie, watching the elk eating their breakfast in the frosty grass before heading off into the woods ourselves.

It was still early, so it was pretty dark and spooky between the thick trees. There were a couple of sections where a bear could have easily been hiding! There were plenty more mushrooms to be seen here, and after a little while we reached the "big tree". This tree was 286 feet tall, 23.7 feet in diameter and estimated at 1500 years old.

I am in this photo

We then carried on to see the "corkscrew tree" which was really twisted!

The trail back was a different route and took us over little bridges, through tree clumps and down streams. It was a very pretty walk and probably my favourite.

We had lunch back at the Elk Prairie visitor centre and warmed up in their gift shop before driving on to another trail.

This one was the Lady Bird Johnson loop, named for the woman who dedicated the forest as a National Park. It started with a bridge over the road, and then led onto a short loop which had markers that matched up to a nature guide which we had not prepared for. But it was still a nice trail, although by this point, we'd seen a lot of big trees.

To end the day, we went to Sue Meg State Park to find Patrick's Point which had been recommended to us as a good view of the sea. We ate a snack and waited for sunset. I don't think it was much better than the point we'd seen the other day, but it was a nice place to end the day.

We headed back to our cabin to eat our leftovers and finish the wine (not before stopping to buy a chocolate orange to compliment our dinner) and learnt a new card game for the night.

In the morning we started out early and picked up Asta to start the drive back down South. We had breakfast at a cute cafe called Coffee Break where we all got breakfast and bagels to go so we could eat lunch on the go to save time.

On the way we stopped at the drive thru tree and Mitchell had to squeeze our wide car through a very old tree. The car in front of us was a very tall one and looked like it scraped its roof. But we made it through ok and it made for a good swapping point for drivers.

Mitchell however did lose his phone, and we had to call it to find it. It turned out to be in the boot, so it was lucky it wasn't busy and we could stop in the road in the park for him to run around and get it. We then stopped to take a picture of a tortoise sculpture and Mitchell promptly dropped his newly recovered phone out the window.

After that it was smooth sailing and we drove back through wine country with just a quick stop for a wee and to eat lunch. Asta got to drive over the bridge this time as we arrived back in San Francisco in the afternoon amid a very funny game of think of an animal.