"If you've seen one Redwood Tree, you've seen them all."

Days 6 and 7. April 26 and 27.


View Harvey's Route in a larger map

Well, I think all on this trip can now definitively say that good old Ronald was off his meds when he came up with that line.

We started the day in Ashland with two airport stops on the agenda. Unfortunately we were saying goodbye to Jake in Medford. We had a great time with him biking through Napa, beer tasting, relaxing in Mt. Shasta, and seeing some Shake-a-spear. As always, Jake took some incredible pictures with his excellent, but slightly inferior, Nikon D-40. We were so happy to start our trip with you, Jake.

But it's time to move on and Pops (Eric's dad) had already begun his journey across country to join us. From McNamara Terminal in Detroit to McNamara Field in Crescent City, CA, Pops was well on his way when we drove Harvey back across the California border.

After picking up Pops from the tiniest airport ever on the coast, we traveled the few miles back into the Redwoods National and State Parks. We had the most ridiculous campsite which gave us a front row seat to the Smith River. The water was so clear and we had our very own rocky beach area, which Niko quickly claimed as his own and Riley, well Riley was just her happy little noodle self!







Once we had set up camp we quickly grabbed our chairs and set out to find a nice spot to read on our newly claimed beach. Having recently done some research on the Redwood Natl. and State Parks for a paper, I was now aware that bears as well as puma (who knew?) were residents of the area. So, after sharing this with Eric and Pops, we quickly made it a point to warn each other to watch for bear being chased by a puma (or vice versa). I was sure we would look out our window one morning and see this game of chase, but I was proven wrong....

The next day we roamed around the almost deserted park looking for trails to explore. We were able to get some awesome shots of the river and some of the magnificent trees, but the trails proved overgrown as the rangers had not made it out this early in the year to clear them yet. Oh well, we still had our beach!