Pacific Northwest and Alaska: Grants Pass

The last day in Eureka was spent gathering family history records. We spent some time at the library and found some obituaries. And it turned out that the volunteer in the Humbolt room (which has lots of books on Eureka and the surrounding area) was the owner's daughter of the bakery where my uncle worked for 40 years. She went to school with my cousin and was able to find a picture of him from their 50 year reunion. Small world!

We headed north on US 101 up through the Redwood National Park and State Parks. The weather was clear and beautiful and we were able to get some really great photos. We stopped at the Prairie Creek State Park and took some accessible trails through the redwoods. It was going great until I decided to take a trail over to the "Big Tree" area and have Russ meet me there with the truck. Everything would have been great except I made a wrong turn almost immediately and ended up on a trail that was at right angles to where I really needed to go. I didn't realize this until I had gone about 1.5 miles down the path. I decided to turn back around and return to the Visitor Center rather than continue, figuring that Russ would realize after a while that I wasn't coming and he would either go down the trail to find me or go back to the Visitor Center. By the time I got back to the Visitor Center, the scooter battery was running low and I decided to stay put and wait for him. Eventually he showed up and the adventure was over. Not my brightest idea.

Around Crescent City, we turned off 101 and took Highway 199 up over the mountains to Grants Pass. Due to our adventure in the Redwoods, we didn't get into Grants Pass until around 7 pm. The drive was twisty, but beautiful with views of mountains and sheer drop-offs to rivers. I was really glad that the day was warm and dry - it would have been a bit nerve wracking to drive the road in the rain.

The drive wound its way through groves of trees and then, suddenly, a vista of the ocean would appear. We stopped at a visitor center that had some access to the beach area. Lots of warnings about rogue waves and the possibility of tsunamis.

The ocean was strewn with rocks, some large like this one and others just barely showing up out of the water. Not a good place for boating.

After vistas of beautiful, wild ocean, we would then enter a quiet forested section of the road. Traffic was light so we were able to take our time and enjoy.

Prairie Creek has a lot of old growth redwoods. This one had been burned at some point and there was a large opening in the middle.

I spotted this very large mushroom (about 10 inches in diameter). No idea if it was edible.

The meadow by the Visitor Center had about six Roosevelt elk visiting. They were certainly enjoying all the greens.

What looks like a wall of dirt is, in fact, a fallen tree that has been decomposing and providing a home to lots of forest life.

This is another one of those chandelier trees growing out of a branch of a larger tree.

This tree fell on top of a tree stump. As it rots, it sags and ultimately breaks apart.

This is inside a group of trees which sprouted up around a mother tree. The mother tree is heavily burned, so there is literally a path through the tree.

There were lots of nice trails in the park for exploring the redwoods. Maps weren't very detailed and signs were few and far between. At least, that is the excuse I am giving for getting misplaced.