Saturday - The smoke is still with us, unfortunately, so we decided to forego the smoky beach and see if we could get out of the smoke. Joe started his morning with a smoky blackberry (not too tasty), then we drove through Brookings, crossed into California, and went to the Visitor Center in Crescent City. You can see the ash laying on our car.
It seemed like the smoke got better as we crossed into California We drove through Smith River, but didn't stop. The guy at the Visitor Center was very helpful, and we came out armed with maps and more brochures. We drove to the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, which is part of the Redwood National Forest, and followed a dirt road through the park. Awesome, absolutely awesome. This was a gorgeous drive through these huge old-growth trees. The dirt road just meanders around the trees, so there were lots of crooks and turns.
We got smart and opened up the moonroof so we could see the tops of the trees. Joe figured his vertigo would be back by the time we got out of this park.
There's no way these pictures capture the girth or height of these magnificent trees. The smoke made them less clear but added its own element of awesomeness.
Panoramic shot.
Joe climbed into one here. I should have taken a video.
Our next stop was at a creek, or river. We climbed down the trail and waded right in. For once, we took all our equipment with us: walking sticks, water shoes, towel, and a bag for rocks. The water was crystal clear, and deeper in some spots than it appeared. It was cold, but bearable, and Joe did a little exploring.
Toes in the water.
Back to our drive, we reached the Stout Memorial Grove, a little hiking trail through the trees. It was only about 2/10 of a mile, with another side-trail along the river that we took, but we spent over an hour here. These trees are just breathtaking. And the logs from felled trees are as tall as we are.
This was a great trail, and took us past huge groves of these redwoods.
We even shared the path with a chipmunk. In the next photo, you can actually see the red hue to the wood.
This next tree came down just 4 years ago. It was a monster.
We passed two parked cars with so much dust and ash on them that they looked like they had been abandoned. There was quite a bit of traffic on this drive, surprised us, we thought we would be the only ones here. We met one car with 3 kids sticking their heads out through the moonroof. They had a good view but were probably choking!
We came out of the park and headed down the Redwood Highway to take the
Smith River drive, about a 30-mile drive along the river. But the river
is really low, so we didn't get to see too much. We did come past one
of the fire camps and a heli station along here, and we saw 2 other fire
camps on our way back to the RV.
We worked our way back to the 101, and headed back to Brookings. We drove down to the harbor here, then found a pizza joint for dinner. After a stop at Fred Meyer, we headed back to our campground. Here, we drove down to the beach, which was still very smoky. The sun peeking through the smoke haze gave a different look, kind of eerie.
We got back to the RV with just 45 minutes to spare before our evening ranger program, which was about Seals and Sea Lions. So we learned a little more about sealife. And then called it a night.
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