1,248 some odd miles and 5 days later we are home at last from the Redwoods. We arrived in Seattle late Saturday night worn out, and frustrated. As it turns out the Oregon Coast is packed out in the summer. Duh. Our plans to camp somewhere, anywhere near Lincoln City were thwarted when we discovered that every campground in a 150 mile radius was booked solid. To add insult to injury, 30 minutes in a parking lot on our iPhones yielded only the information that every hotel in the area was equally unavailable. Planning fail.
We may have failed to anticipate the weekend crush, but our decision to take the scenic route down Highway 101 was a brilliant tactical maneuver. Any of you that have driven long distances on I-5 know how intensely boring it is. Not so on the 101. It winds along the edge of the Oregon Coast for the better part of 230 miles until it spits you out in North California. Your eyes are assaulted with beauty along the entire stretch as you thread your way through quaint coastal towns, craggy ocean cliffs, fog, forests, and farmland.
Theresa and I have decided to try a little different approach in telling our story. Rather than attempting to describe our entire trip in detail for you, we thought it would be fun if we both wrote about our favorite part of the trip. And if a photo is worth a thousand words, we have about 25,000 words to help fill in the blanks.
Elias’ Favorite Things:
The Avenue of the Giants gets all the press when you do some preliminary trip research, and for good reason. They are epic and they are accessible. The Avenue is a 30 mile strip through the biggest trees you can possibly imagine. There are dozens of groves right along the road with short, usually 1 mile loops into the heart of the forest. You can park your car just off the road, and 50 feet into a grove you forget that roads exist. In fact cars seem out of place. It seems more plausible to encounter a pack of velociraptors, or a lonely T-Rex lurking amongst the trees.
Amazing as The Avenue was, Ladybird Johnson Grove in the north blew my mind. The Northern section of the Redwoods National Park is not as impressive as The Avenue at first blush. Driving through it there aren’t many big trees near the road. Many of the groves are several miles from Highway 101, so unless you “go out of your way” you never get to seem them. However, you’d be foolish to pass them up. Theresa and I arrived at the Ladybird Johnson Grove to find the parking lot enshrouded in fog. If you know what a fog junkie I am, you’ll know this is the best possible thing. An easy 1-mile loop took us through a foggy wonderland filled with trees rivaling those in The Avenue. To give you an idea of how much we enjoyed ourselves here, suffice it to say that it took us over 2 hours to make the 1 mile loop back to the parking lot.
To summarize, my favorite part of the trip was that we got to see two sides of the forest. In the South we found a prehistoric forest filled with light and warmth. In the North we found a mysterious cathedral, damp and haunting.
Theresa’s Favorite Things:
I have been going on road trips since before I could speak. Family vacations never started on an airplane. They started before sunrise in my pj’s, tucked into the back seat of the car with Andrea. Behind our seat was a wall of road trip essentials packed from floor to ceiling ensuring that our necessities would be taken care of for two weeks on the road. Road trips are are carved in my soul and close to my heart.
My favorite part about this adventure was sharing a road trip with Elias. A REAL road trip, not just a six hour drive. Heading out on the road and living from the car for days, this was something new for us. I love the freedom of a road trip. Pulling off the highway to watch the sunset, getting burgers at dives with the locals, stopping at the Gems and Minerals Museum… because we can…
I have a vivid memory of driving through the redwoods as a child, watching my Dad in awe of the giants alongside the road, Bruce Springsteen streaming through the speakers. We pulled over at a gift shop built into the root system of a massive redwood and selected a special gift for my Mom. Andrea and I hid the gift somewhere in the car only to reveal on the morning of her birthday when we woke up in the back seat of the car and presented her with that magical flowing sand art.
This time the trip was far more beautiful to me than it was back then. Beautiful in a different way I suppose. This time around I could truly appreciate the wonder of these giant trees surrounding us. I understood why my dad drove through those groves at 10 mph with his head out the window twisted up towards the sky.
