Paul Bunyan vs. Giant Redwoods

We hit the Redwoods today and it was more than incredible. It was breathtaking. If you've never been to California you need to go. If you've never been to the Redwoods, you haven't seen nature. It was sad to learn  there are only about 5% of the original Redwood trees still remaining for us to admire today. There was once 2 million acres of these beautiful giants and now there are so few. When people first settled in the northern California area they saw these huge trees and saw several houses or buildings out of one tree rather than several trees for one building. While it is upsetting to see the lack of trees in the forest, we still gawked and marveled at the largest single Redwood tree service station in Ukiah, CA. It was quite a site.

Before we left Ukiah, we had to pay homage to the monument dedicated to Ladies of the Night. Yes, it really exists!  The plaque read:

To the ladies of the night,

Who plied their trade upon this site.

Awesome!

Back to the Redwoods... We took the scenic drive and we were surrounded by the wooded giants all day. I'm sure you've heard of those Redwoods that you can drive through. Well, we actually got to do that today! It was called Chandelier Tree and it's still living. There is a large tunnel-like hole cut out of the bottom of the tree that you can pay $5 to drive through as many times as you want, so we did it twice. Hey, gotta get our money's worth. We also got out of the car several times to walk around and get up close and really see the trees. We saw Tall Tree and Giant Tree (yes, they are really called that, with a plaque in front of them proclaiming it). Giant Tree is so big around that it would probably take about 20 adults with arms stretched out and holding hands to reach all the way around.

So after coming out of the woods, we drove up the coast to EUREKA! It's a fun name to say and a fun place to visit. We ate dinner at this great local place called Lost Coast Brewery. They have some really delicious food. I feel like half of these blog postings have been promoting food. Well, we love food and we love eating so there will be plenty more of this in the coming days!

Not only did we see giant Redwoods today, we also drove across Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. The were enormous statues about 20 minutes south of Crescent City, CA (our final destination) so naturally we made Dad pull into the abandoned parking lot so we could take a picture. Paul was 49 feet tall with a 27 foot ax by his side with Babe coming in at 35 feet from tail to horn tips. It was pretty huge.

We ended our journey today in Crescent City a small coastal town with a jetty, pier and lighthouse. We drove up to the beach to wander around the driftwood and see the lighthouse up close....see it up there on the cliff?

And Mom found a driftwood treasure and insisted that we take it home for her. Sometimes I wonder about that woman....