I wanted to get in a good exercise walk today and when I looked out my window, I saw that there was a cloud sitting on the inlet. It was pretty cold, front steps were icy and slippery, but it was going to be a sunny day as there was sun everywhere else so I figured it would either be a walk in total fog with no views or the sun might burn it off.
Got in the car and motored down the hill to corner of Moody and St John’s. Parked there and walked the rest of the way to Rocky Pt park and continued around the inlet as planned.
I was not disappointed! Although on the way to my turn around at Orchard Beach, all the boardwalks were frosted and slippery, on the way back, most of them had defrosted as the sun did come out. And there was opportunity for some spectacular images, IMHO.
So here you go. Enjoy
Pretty neat, huh!!! 🙂 Almost wish I’d brought my real camera!
After a lovely night’s rest and breakfast at our BnB in Brookings, we headed down to the Harris Beach State Park there and spent some time just walking around. Here’s a few photos from the park.
J’s charismatic windswept look 🙂
Peek-a-Boo!
Impressive Rocks!
After getting our fill of the the wonderful ocean scenery and basically having the park to ourselves, we headed back out on the highway to our next stop, Pistol River State Scenic Viewpoint. From the map, it looked like it might be an interesting spot and lo and behold, when we got to it we were pleasantly surprised to see that it had dunes. Now this might not seem like a big deal to a lot of people but J had never seen dunes before and she was ecstatic!! She’d always wanted to see dunes but somehow, had never had the good fortune to run across any on the beaches she had been to. So, of course, we wandered in amongst the dunes for a while and spent some time on the beach just enjoying watching waves.
Yup, them’re dunes alright. With windswept dune grass.
Wave Watching
Again, we were the only ones there! I guess there’s some benefits, especially to a landscape photographer like I am, to go off season in crappy weather. No one around to get in the way of the scenery except my favourite model 🙂
Back in the car and up the road a piece to another pullout where I took this pic looking North.
Our next was for lunch at the Redfish in Port Orford.
The Redfish (J’s hair in bottom right)
Lovely lunch with some great views there too.
Having achieved a pleasant state of satiety, we meandered back to the car and headed on up the road again to what was our penultimate stop along the way, Cape Blanco State Park. Cape Blanco is the Westernmost point in Oregon and the contingual United States, and contains the Southernmost Lighthouse in Oregon. All fine reasons to stop there! What they don’t tell you about is the strength of the wind there! WhoooBoy….! J was afeared to leave the car. I got out and took a bunch of photos; hey that’s what I do, and I jumped straight up to land about foot back of where I launched myself from. There was a guy in a convertible with the top down and all the windows up just enjoying the views and eating a sandwich. Said he often comes to enjoy the scenery and wind.
From here we headed up to Bandon where we stopped at the renowned Face Rock Creamery to pick up some cheese and have a heavenly ice cream 🙂 We never actually visited the Face Rock but there’s lots of pics on the web of it.
From here, it was head up to Reedsport to pick up Rt 38 back to I-5. Rt 38 turned out to be a lovely road along the river and through the hills. Did I mention that we saw sheep in Oregon. And Elk. Lots of both!
Once we got to I-5, we headed up to Portland to stay with a friend of J’s that’s she’s known forever. Had a pizza dinner, conversation, crashed and were on the road again the next morning. Our last stop was a food court in the Alderwood Mall because I decided to get the pack after all!
Yum! Indian Food!
And then back home. Boy, were we glad to be back home in our own bed that night. We had a great trip and loved all the crazy ups and downs and beautiful places and trees we saw but there’s nothing like coming home after a trip to your own bed! And on that note, I’ll say amen and leave you all in peace until I decide to write about something else.
Hi. Welcome back to day 4 of our Coast and Redwoods trip. Hope you’ve enjoyed it so far.
Originally we thought we might stay an extra day in the forest but after our first night in our “cottage” we knew it was going to be a one-day affair. So we packed up our gear and planned to spend the day enjoying the redwoods and then head back up into Oregon.
Alright, time to get up and start our big day sightseeing redwoods in the Humboldt Redwood State Park we had spent all this time and energy to get to. Was it worth it? Let’s see what you think. But first, let’s have a little breakfast, shall we?
At this point our main guide was this map/brochure we had picked up in one of the stores we stopped at before we got to the “cottage”. It gave us some idea of what we could expect but it was more a publicity and ads thing than a map.
For breakfast, since we were already pretty much at the Southern tip of the Avenue of the Giants in Phillipsville we decided to drive back up to Miranda to see what the Avenue Cafe was like. Here we are waiting for our order of eggs and such.
Avenue Cafe in Miranda where they don’t have any peanut butter. EVER!
Food was ok but when I asked for some peanut butter for my french toast they said they didn’t stock any peanut butter at the Cafe. None. Period. Kinda strange to not even have the little individual serving plastic containers but c’est la vie. I’ll give it 3.5 stars out of 5. Chowed down and headed back out. Tree time!
Oh, I need to tell you that it was raining. Not just a pleasant light rain but a serious need-the-umbrella-to-get-anywhere-without-getting-soaked kinda rain. Our plan for the day was to visit some of the groves on the map above, stop at the visitor center and then plan the rest of the day until we needed to leave. Here’s a few pics from the first grove we wandered around; I think it was the Williams Grove.
One of the first things we noticed besides the big trees was what we first thought was clover all over the forest floor. We later realized it was wood sorrel and I was dumbfounded that I hadn’t recognized it! Some forestry school graduate I turned out to be! But seriously, that was oh, 40+ years ago and the amount that I have remembered just astonishes me sometimes.
From here we headed up to the visitor’s center as planned. Oh boy was that an eye-opener! First of all we were able to get a map that was actually a map!
And the ranger was so helpful. The first thing he did was to tell us how bad our previous map was. And then once we told him what we were interested in and didn’t mind doing some serious hiking to get there, he told us where to find the best trees and forest for our time there. He told us to not miss the Founders Loop or the Rockefeller Loop.
And here’s why.
Doesn’t that burl on the left look like an animal? I see a lamb’s head nestled against the trunkthe roots of a recently fallen giantThe mandatory, “Look, I’m inside the base of a tree” photo 🙂
(I just want to add that the visitor’s center is worth setting aside an hour or two to spend there if you have time. There are lots of interpretive displays and lots of history. Interesting fact: It was due to a picnic to which John D. Rockefeller, Jr. was invited amongst the redwoods that the park came to be. Rockefeller was so impressed that he donated a large amount of money to the Save-the-Redwoods League to help fund the park.)
The ranger recommended that we head up the Bull Creek Trail North as far as we had time for. Since it was early in the season and a very rainy day we’d probably not see anyone on the trail and it had some of the best trees in the park. And that was absolutely true. We saw nobody on the trail for the time we were on it.
Before I take you along that trail I thought I’d share this site which has a wealth of information about redwoods. One of the things the ranger told us was that the burls of the tree were not cancerous growths as I thought, but actually contained dormant sprouts ready to grow out if the main tree was sufficiently damaged. Sorta contained the tree’s version of stem cells, if you know what I’m talking about. Way cool. So that “lamb’s head” pic above is actually waiting for a chance to start a new tree, should it be called upon to do so.
And for how I got so many nice pics on such a rainy day, all I can say is I was lucky and had fantastic help. We had a drill between J and I. I carried the tripod and whenever I wanted to take a shot, she’d be my photo assistant and hold the umbrella over me while I got the camera out and everything set up. Since I was using a remote shutter release for long exposures once I was all set, I’d take the umbrella back and then if she was going to be in the pic, she’d get where we wanted her and I could take the shot shielding the camera from the rain. If she wasn’t in the shot, she’d just continue holding the brolly for me. Nice! Can’t ask for more than that from a partner.
Ok, on to the Bull Creek North trail, also known as the Big Tree Trail. Because it was such a rainy day we didn’t spend nearly as much time on the trail as we would have liked but the time we did spend was well worth it. There was a bit of bushwacking to get around some trees that had come down recently but that didn’t stop us. We’re from BC where that’s entirely normal 🙂
Ok, tell me you can’t see the beast’s head here, snuggled into its mother tree!J playing peek-a-boo between our 2 favourite trees of the daywithout J
A lovely grove
And that’s pretty much it for the Redwoods and Sequoias this year! We were more than satiated with big trees and in answer to the “Was it worth it?” question I asked above, we both gave a resounding YES!!
In a way, this was kind of a reccy trip. Now we knew that if we wanted to spend some time in really big trees, we could come here. We have a map and there are trails for backpacking so maybe that will be our next foray into the redwoods.
Back to the car and our plan to head up to Oregon. Now we need a place to sleep. So while J was driving I got on the web and found us a BnB in Brookings, Oregon, called The South Coast Inn Bed & Breakfast.
As we were traveling a bit late, we decided to stop for dinner at the Fisherman’s Restaurant in Crescent City. The wind was really blowing and it was quite stormy so it was a nice relief to get out of the car and into a friendly restaurant. I’ll give it a 4 star rating.
Fisherman’s Restaurant in Crescent City
After eating we headed back up the highway to Brookings and The South Coast Inn B&B. What a difference compared to the previous night! Literally night and day. The rates were affordable and the accommodations were just fantastic. As it was so rainy, they had had several cancellations and we had our pick of rooms. We stayed in the Sea Breeze Room.
We relaxed and rested in our room and so ended day 4 of our Left Coast Trip. Ahhhh.
On day 5 we were planning on exploring our way up the Oregon coast and heading back East to Portland and I5 to stay with a friend before heading back home on day 6.
We spent a wonderful morning with our friends in Roseburg – actually in the countryside between Sutherlin and Roseburg – and they gave us a whole host of suggestions of things to see and do as we travelled down to the redwoods in California and when we headed back home via another section of the Oregon coast.
We made our way back to I5 where we headed on down to Grant’s Pass. We wanted to take a coffee break so we got off the highway and just started heading through town. As soon as we drove by the Bluestone Cafe, I knew we had found our coffee stop!
The Bluestone Cafe in Grant’s Pass
As the food looked really good, too, we ordered a couple of sandwiches to take on the road with us. Good decision so we thought until we opened the bags a bit later. Much to our surprise, although the receipt indicated we got what we ordered and paid for, what was inside was a completely different order! And as I’m a pescavore and both sandwiches had meat, I pretty much had to make do with a bit of bread and some granola bars for lunch. Even so, everyone makes mistakes and I’d still give top ratings for this place!! The bevvies were perfect 🙂
From Grant’s Pass, we picked up Highway 199, which is also called the Redwood Highway. One of the places our friends had recommended we stop at was Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park. So we did. It comes up about 45 minutes or so after you cross into California. We spent about an hour there just walking a little loop and having our first experience amongst the big trees. Here’s some big tree photos from the park.
Yup, they’re big!
Really big!!
Like, really BIG!!!
There were also scads of white trilliums in bloom on the forest floor and I’m still striving for a perfect spring trillium shot. I take a bunch every year. Here’s a few of this year’s contenders from the park.
There was also a lovely bright red mushroom which cried out to be photographed.
And here’s one of the giants just hanging out in the forest. No trail to it. I just enjoyed seeing it so nicely ensconced in all the other foliage and shrubbery.
So, back into the car and on down the highway. We stopped at a pull off somewhere’s down the road from Crescent City for a bit of a beach break.
From here, we headed down to our ultimate destination, the Humboldt Redwoods State Park and the Avenue of the Giants in Phillipsville, where we had booked what we thought was a nice AirBnB cottage. Hoo boy were we surprised when it turned out to be a pretty down and out motel. It’s amazing how good you can make something look if you take pictures of it from a certain angle in just the right light.
By the time we rolled in around 8 PM or so, it was too late to do anything about it so we made the best of it. We headed to the Riverwood Inn, a restaurant/bar across the street from the motel and had a pretty good Mexican dinner so it was not a complete disaster.
Then we rolled into bed and made plans for spending the next day gawking at the big trees.
Well, I think that’s enough for now. I’ll finish this trip report with the next installment.
Went downtown yesterday to see a double bill of old Japanese movies at Cinematheque with a friend and as we had some time to kill before showtime, thought we’d spend some of it walking along the Vancouver shoreline. Brollies were the gear of the day!
It was also a bit chilly for our neck of the woods. Anyways, after struggling with the brolly, taking off one glove, holding the not-so-smart phone and trying to juggle them all in the rain with only 2 hands, zoom in a bit, and hit shoot button, I managed to get a couple of shots, one of which kinda captured the moment for me.
Vancouver skyline on a misty walk along the shore
Of course, then I had to reverse the entire procedure to get the NSSphone back into my pocket.
You get the idea. You’ve all been there, done that.
Bioblogging with Rich 