Among the Giants

Our first stop in California was to see some of the largest organisms on earth – the giant coastal redwoods so unique to the state. The drive included parts of the famous Highway 101, which teased us with beautiful ocean scenes and tree lined cliffs.

We made a bit of a mistake in this part of our planning of the trip though. It was our assumption that the federal government probably snagged the best groves of Redwoods for the Redwood National Park, and so we set this park as the destination for our overnight trip among the big trees. However, as it turns out, California State Parks snagged the best groves, and we found ourselves most impressed with the trees along the Avenue of the Giants in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park the next day. Not to say our stay in the national park wasn’t pretty. We were especially impressed with these trees that looked more like coral under the blue surface of the water rather than the sky.

Coral tree?

The Redwoods themselves were just sparser, although we did have a nice giant overlooking our campsite for the night. But the grove we walked through in the Humboldt State Park was truly astonishing. The Redwoods are such wonderful specimens, it’s hard not to be in awe of them as you walk through the grove. They survive fire, insects, and wind as if they’ll live forever, though huge fallen trunks and tiny baby Redwoods are proof of the cycle of life they eventually succumb to. We had all sorts of fun crawling around the fallen trunks and investigating cavernous gashes in living trees caused by fire. The area is also known for sightings of the elusive “Bigfoot” which thoroughly creeped us out. 

It's amazing that something this big...

...can become this big!

The only giants we saw though, were the trees themselves. Thankfully.