Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Trees of Mystery

Today I noticed that in the last three days, I've been in three different states and two different countries. It's pretty frickin' awesome. Jessica and I left Portland this morning and headed down I-5 to check out the California Redwoods. The weather was pleasant enough, blue skies and warm. Jessica drove the whole way down. I played with the radio and read my book, Cloud-Hidden Whereabouts Unknown by Alan Watts (by the way, the perfect book for this road trip) and then ended up dosing off for a bit. I woke up to beauty all around me. The landscape changed before our eyes; the beautiful lush Portland mountains and hills became a more open, dry plains and farms. The mountains felt like they came closer toward us and the trees grew taller the more south we went.

Hours of hours on the road we finally made it to Crescent City after taking the 199 to 101. The strange thing is, once we got there, there was this mysterious cold fog that appeared out of nowhere. We got some food at the local geriatric diner (Denny's) and then headed to check out the giant trees that California has to offer. It was my turn to drive so I came up with a system for Jessica to communicate her nervousness to me without annoying me. It's the def con countdown system, a 1-5 count, 1 being fine and 5 being pull over and let me drive. She only said 2 once. Everything we saw was gorgeous. It was crazy because we would go from thick fog to beautiful sunlight cutting through the trees. The times we could see the ocean were always covered with the fog. I felt like we pulled over every 100 feet so we could take pictures. There were a lot of cute little places within the park. One attraction was for the Trees of Mystery. When we were in the thick of the park we were in owe. Words and pictures won't be able to describe it and give it justice. I felt like I was in a fairy tale or a dream (especially with the sporadic fog). It was so amazing. Jess and I did some hiking and I got to pee in the forest. I wish we could have planned our time better and spend much more time in the Redwoods. Jessica calls our trip a Tapas bar of different flavors - only getting wonderful little samples of places.

So the plan was to drive into Eureka and get a place to stay but funny story: All the hotels in a 2 hour area are booked because it was move in week at the local university. We ended up traveling more south to Scotia and are staying at this awesome boutique hotel. It's really nice. Jess is taking a bath right now.

Tomorrow we are off to Napa Valley to drink some wine.

2 comments:

  1. Sarah, Peeing in the forest, was anybody looking? anyway good narrative on your day in the forest....Check the oil in the car, it may need changing...........when in wine country, bring me a sample..........RED.... Love, Dad

    ps........only men and boys pee in the forest....

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  2. Only men, boys and bad-ass women and girls pee in the forest. It's easy for guys to pee in the forest but it takes talent and effort for a chick to do it. You should be a proud father.

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