Day 3
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!
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.
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.
Happy Ramblings,
Bioblogging with Rich 