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| I'm Rolling Thunder... |
Waking up in the middle of the Redwood Forest is something to behold. I made myself a latte and sat at the café table inside of Rolling Thunder, enjoying my view. I even saw a jack rabbit hop by. Jasper sure would love to "play" with him!
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| Room with a view of a jack rabbit |
I took the little guy out to investigate, and then walked over to the "Immortal Tree," which sits on the edge of the campground. As it says on the placard, this tree, like many others, has withstood the test of time. And at between 950 and 1000 years old, I would have to agree! This tree has withstood lightning (which looks it's top off), a loggers axe, a forest fire in 1908 and the Flood of 1964!
After getting rolling thunder ready, we headed back down the Avenue of the Giants, still in awe of these magnificent trees.
Because we weren’t particularly pressed for time today (so I thought), I found a couple of side trips that I thought would be interesting. Each about 40 and 60 minutes from the ancient redwoods RV park.
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| Cream City Farm |
The first stop was a little town called Ferndale, where they have a Victorian cottage district. The houses and storefronts have been very well preserved! It’s a cute little farm town, nicknamed "Cream City" because it's surrounded by dairy farms and beautiful wide-open countryside. Waze took us on a bit of a wild goose chase, but it ended up being a cool, little off the beaten path view of this region that we would not have otherwise not seen.
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| The last video store? |
Back on the 101, we continued North. Mazzy spotted a Starbucks sign, so we decided to do a little pitstop. Right next-door to Starbucks was a video store. I couldn’t believe my eyes! It was an actual operating video store, like Blockbuster! An employee was setting up a display of DVDs outside the store that were for sale. I told her it brought back great memories for me to see this store! I also asked her if people actually still rent videos? She said, well, we definitely have our regular customers, and smiled. I smiled back and headed to rolling thunder. I told the kids to pop their heads outside the door so they could see an important historical monument... They asked, what is that? I had to explain, once upon a time…
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| Small lighthouse |
Back on the road for our next stop, the Trinidad Memorial Lighthouse, which is north of Eureka CA. Now, from the pictures of this of this lighthouse, you would think it was a grand old lighthouse that was towering high on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Well, as they say, pictures can be deceiving. I'm glad we stopped, as we all needed to
stretch our legs, but I think we were all less than impressed. Especially after spending time amongst the towering, mighty Redwoods! This all said, we did enjoy a short hike and some amazing vistas!
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| Trinidad State Beach |
Two years ago when I was up here for the for the Avenue of Giants Marathon, we went on a hike in an area of the Redwoods that was north of Eureka. I really wanted to take the kids to this area called Tall Tree Grove, in Redwood State and National Parks. This area is absolutely incredible, with massive Redwoods, huge ferns, moss and other growth, that makes you feel more like you are in the Ewok forest in Star Wars, rather than some place here on Earth! What I didn't remember is that it look us about an hour on a winding road in an SUV to reach the trailhead. So, in a 32' RV, you need to add at least 30 minutes to that. Also, you need a permit to go there, which I did not have... And I did not know this until I saw a sign about 15 minutes into the drive up the mountain. One of the boys had gotten the permit last time, so I was not aware of this minor detail... Ooops.
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| 2018 - Tall Tree Grove |
Since we were already up this way, I still wanted to give the kids a good hike amongst the giant trees, so I opted to go to Lady Bird Redwood Grove, which was about 20 minutes up in the mountain. But wait... When we got there, the sign on the small parking lot said, "No RV or Truck Parking." Yikes. Until now I have had no problem parking Rolling Thunder anywhere, but it would appear that my luck was running out...
Still in good spirits from our view of the Redwoods just outside the window of Rolling Thunder, and from our amazing hike on the Avenue of Giants, I decided to turn around and head back down the hill for some lunch at the beach!
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| Surf's flat dude |
We found a great place to stop, have lunch and put our toes in the grey sand beach of Redwood Creek. This also gave me an opportunity to find a place to stay in-between our current location and Mount Shasta. With nightfall in a few hours, another long winding road, and a full day of driving already behind us, I knew that we would not make it to Mount Shasta tonight.
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| Grey sand beach fun |
I found a place just around the halfway mark on the CA Route 299, The Trinity River "Resort" and Rv Park. The pictures looked decent, and they had an advisory posted on their website that said, "We Are NOT Marijuana Friendly And Are A Drug Free Property. If You Are Looking To Party, Please Go Somewhere Else." This sound like a good place for a family to get a good nights sleep... So I booked it, finished lunch, got knee deep in the Pacific Ocean one last time before heading inland and were off on our two and a half hour drive to our sober home in the woods!
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| Route 299 along Trinity River |
The drive along Route 299 is nice, with river and valley vistas, and lots of trees. We reached our destination just before the sun was going down, as usual, and were greeted by a gentleman with a whiskey and cigarettes voice, and who was wearing, how can I say this, a "tank top..." I think he was surprised by our late arrival, so my first impression was that he was annoyed at us. But, he was actually very helpful. He pointed out a spot that had full hookups, and said that it should work. "If it doesn't," he said, "knock on the white trailer parked over there," as he pointed to a trailer parked along the back side of the campground. I assume it was his.
I should explain that "full hookups" means that the campsite has electricity, water and a sewer connection. When I signed up earlier, I was only able to get a site with electricity and water, so it was nice of him to find me a site that "might work" with full hookups! And, I was happy to find that one of the power outlets did actually work, so we were good to go for the night!
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| Our humble home for the night |
To call this campground a resort is definitely a stretch, but there was a rustic charm to it that made it just right for us for a night. As the sun set, the 'tween explored the river that was about 100 feet from our campsite on his bike, I made dinner and the teen got set up on the campground WIFI to communicate with her friends, because as she says, "I have a life..." Luckily the WIFI was working, as our phones did not. Oh, and neither neighbor seemed to be smoking weed or using drugs, so I'm confident it will be a quiet night.
Start: Avenue of Giants CA
Destination: Trinity River, Lewiston CA
Where we stayed: Trinity River Resort and Rv Park
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