This was initially posted on my previous blog on October 20, 2016.
We were on such a high from Crater Lake heading to the Redwoods. We knew it was going to be a very different look, but still beautiful.
October 12: We got an early start down to the Crescent City/Redwoods KOA and luckily only had a 3.5 hour drive! It was an uneventful drive but by the end, we were in the Redwoods and staring at incredible trees. I have been going to the campsite first to set up the trailer so that I have more flexibility in the parks with just my car. I also haven’t had a chance to learn how to backup with the trailer so I am trying to avoid disaster. Luckily setting up the trailer takes only 5-10 minutes (blog on the trailer coming soon). I was still battling my horrible cold so we took a quick nap and set off to explore Crescent City. We had debated going to the Redwoods or the Pacific Ocean first and decided on the ocean. Luckily we found a visitor center on the way to the beach so we stopped to ask what is the best for us to do. The ranger there provided a great recommendation on a drive along on old road (more details to come) and gave us two dog walk areas.
First up was the Pacific Ocean (I made it coast-to-coast…well mostly…DC is close enough). Callie has never been to the ocean so I was happy to see her response although I already knew she hates water. She seemed happy to be on the sandy beach and even walked toward the water. She got close enough to lick up a little (hard to stop a dog from doing that) and quickly discovered the water doesn’t taste good. She then wanted nothing to do with the water. We tried one more time and she willingly got close and then tried to run away when too close. Always fun to introduce her to new things.
Then it was off to the find the road the ranger told us about. Howland Hill Road was used when covered wagons were traveling through this area. It was seen some updates but not too many. Definitely a bumpy ride and I was so glad we dropped the trailer off already. It was about 4 miles out and then since there was construction at the end of the road, the ranger suggested just turning around and coming back. I am not much of a tree person, but I was very impressed. Nature is incredible. My mom and I kept commenting about how the settlers back in the day probably responded to crossing the US. We had already seen so many different landscapes and I can’t imagine the settlers were happy to cross the dessert to find enormous trees. And yes, the game Oregon Trail has come up a lot during our trip. While we were driving, we saw two women with dogs leaving a trail so we decided to walk a bit with Callie. She loved the smells and being out. It was even more impressive to be on foot, surrounded by these large Redwoods. We didn’t go to far since it was starting to get dark and threatening rain. We decided to skip the two dog-friendly walks the ranger told us about since we already did a walk and it was starting to get dark.
The big rainstorm wasn’t supposed to start until late that night, so we decided to enjoy the clear evening and make a fire. We had stopped at a grocery to pick up burgers and we were excited to cook them over the fire. We made a great fire and the burgers turned out great. We had to follow those with a s’more too since we hadn’t had any yet despite being on the road for over two weeks. We got as much of the trailer connected as we could since it was going to be raining all night and the next day. We enjoyed the Redwoods, but we were off to Napa the next morning!
