California vacation--the finale

Day 6

After several fun-filled days with aunts, uncles, cousins, cousin-in-laws, step-cousins, cousins-once removed, second cousins...well you get the idea. We had a fun reunion, but on Thursday it was time to move on. We headed north to Eureka to visit my aunt who, because of her health, was unable to attend the reunion. My cousin (her son) had invited us to stay with him and his wife. We drove up Highway 101 and saw some beautiful sights. We absolutely fell in love with the magnificent Coastal Redwoods. You really have to experience these fabulous trees to appreciate just how awesome they are. Here are a few pictures.

The trees are just so unbelievably huge! The second picture was taken with Brian, the girls, my niece and 2 nephews (and a couple of other kids) on the trunk of a fallen redwood. That is the end with the roots. We also stopped at a grove called Founder's Grove, where there were some amazing trees, including the fallen Dyerville Giant. Here is a picture of the Founder's Tree. I believe it is about 12 feet in diameter. There were 10 of us holding hands fingertip to fingertip to encircle the tree! It is almost 350 feet tall. We also got to see the famous "Drive-through Tree." Here is a picture of our family standing in front of it. I took a picture of Brian driving our rental car through it, but it is kind of dark. We finally tore ourselves away from the trees and arrived at my cousin's house. We had a nice dinner with them and visited for awhile before we headed to bed.

Day 7

After a delicious breakfast of pancakes, we headed out to look around Eureka. It is an old logging town and has some interesting sights. The Carson Mansion is a beautiful example of the many Victorian houses in Eureka. We also visited the site of old Fort Humboldt, where there is also an outdoor exhibit of historical logging equipment. Very interesting. After lunch, we went to visit my aunt and had a very nice visit. The afternoon found us on the road headed to a place called Fern Canyon. We took Highway 101 further north, where my cousin had us turn off onto a very rough and winding dirt road. Along the way we saw some Roosevelt elk right next to the road! We ended up near the beach and then took off on a hike into this gorgeous little canyon. There was brook tinkling through it and five-fingered ferns covering the walls. It was breath-taking! My media card reader is not working right now, so I can't download the pictures that I took, but you can go here or here to see someone else's pictures. It's almost like being in another world. Anyway, after our hike, we stopped at Gold Bluffs Beach so the kids could wade in the water one more time. I still can't figure out why they kept wanting to get in that cold water. I guess it's because they live so far from any ocean. Fortunately, they just got their feet and ankles wet this time.

Day 8

We got up on our last day and headed back toward San Francisco. We decided to take Highway 1 along the coast. The first portion of this highway was actually through more mountain and forest so it was extremely twisting and winding. We had to stop at one point because Brian wasn't feeling very well. We ended up near some blackberry bushes, so everyone got out and picked some delicious wild blackberries. YUM! We drove along the coast for quite a ways and it was breath-taking! We didn't take it all the way to San Francisco because we were running out of time to get our rental car back. We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge again--no fog this time-and made it back to SF in time to turn in our car. Then we took the BART back across the bay to our hotel, where we spent the night and left early the next morning.

Well, that's it. We crammed a lot into 8 days, but of course, still didn't get to do everything we would have liked. But, I guess that just leaves things for us to do if we ever find ourselves out that way again.