Cute Trinidad

This might appear to be a lighthouse, but the Trinidad Civic Club built this memorial to those lost and buried at sea.  How sad to see the list of names inscribed around the memorial.

There are a lot of rocks along the coastline in this area and I'm sure many more hidden beneath the water.  I snapped this along the appropriately named Scenic Drive which I mentioned in the previous post.

That's Trinidad Head in the distance which we decided to hike.  It was an interesting trail through lots of vegetation,

And some nice viewpoints.   Of course it's always a struggle seeing anything with the coastal fog.

It's easier to focus on the plants like this precious tiger lily.

On the way to the top, there's a viewpoint where you can catch a glimpse of the working Trinidad lighthouse. Exciting, huh?

Although you do get some nice views of tiny Trinidad.

Back down at bay level, we spotted this diving duck.  As you can see, the water was very clear and we could see him fly though the water.  I looked him up and decided he was a common murre, but I thought he was pretty special.

And I just have to post this gorgeous flowering tree which was outside the laundromat we patronized.  I'm thinking it's an ornamental cherry.

Lost and Found

Before I continue with our sight-seeing in and around Trinidad, I have a cautionary, but funny tale to tell.

In order to access the Cher-Ae Heights casino, you can either take Scenic Road south from Trinidad or north from a more southern exit off  US 101.  Since we were coming from the south, we picked the second choice.  Big mistake.  Ron said that was the worst stretch of road in all the driving he's done on this trip.  In addition to the road being the usual twisty, hilly, narrow, and, in some places, one lane, there was no way to avoid hitting the low-hanging tree branches.

When we arrived at the casino, we noticed one of the gutter extenders on the RV was missing.  Just like this one, but on the opposite side.

Well shoot, these things come in a package of all four.  We decided to drive back and look for it.

We drove the two miles to the exit, looking for a spot of white along the side of the road.  No luck.  Then on our way back, there it was!  We don't know how we missed it the first time because it was right ON the road.

 It's a little cracked and bent up, but Ron thinks he can make it work.  And this mentality is why we both could retire early.  LOL

Flowers Everywhere

We moved to Cher-Ae Heights Casino in Trinidad.  It's not quite free, but close enough, with a $20 flat rate for 1-3 days.  We were only going to stay two nights, but decided to take advantage of their offer and stay three.  We found plenty to do.

The first day we checked out the sights in McKinleyville, just a few miles to the south.  Although the peak flowering season was past, we went to the Azalea State Reserve where the western azalea (Rhododendron occidentale) is king.

Now I know they're in the same family, but I just couldn't understand why these are azaleas and not rhododendrons.  However, now that I look at the pictures, this does look more like an azalea bloom.  They sure are beautiful with their hint of pink and one yellow petal.

Next up was the town's big attraction, literally.  Carved out of one redwood tree, the totem pole is 160 feet high and weighs 57,000 pounds.  It's billed as the world's largest redwood totem.

(Sorry about the poor picture.  I tried, but just couldn't turn it towards the sun.)

Our last stop was a pleasant surprise.  Singing Tree Gardens is a nursery, but with fabulous display gardens.

We thought the blooms on this dogwood tree were unusual.  Somebody must have crossed a pink dogwood with a white one.

They had quite a selection of rhododendrons.  They had red ones.

Yellow ones,

And one with giant blooms that were unusually fragrant named Rhododendron odoriferum.

It's always a good day if it includes flowers.

Eureka!

This is the fourth time I've been to Eureka, CA, so we really had to work to find new things to do.  One thing we repeated was a lunch at Samoa Cookhouse.  What a fun place.  They serve all the dishes family style and the menu is set - you get whatever they're serving that day.  No matter, the food is all terrific.

It was pretty empty when we first arrived, but by the time we left, all the smart people were there.  You need to work up a big hunger to do justice to all the food.

We had soup, salad, fried chicken, two kinds of beans, mashed potatoes with gravy, corn, really good bread, and spiced cake.  It's all you can eat, but we didn't even finish what they brought out initially.  As usual, I have a suggestion how it could be improved - not the food, but the execution.  It's supposed to be a cookhouse atmosphere, so they should fill the tables as people arrive.  Then when they bring out those big dishes of food, it would be true family style, except with strangers. 

There is a lot of memorabilia from the logging industry.

I love all the old pictures.

Leaving the cookhouse, we happened upon the Humboldt Coastal Nature Center built right into the sand dune.  Cool!

The center and dunes trails were okay, but what interested me was the building's history.  In 1985, Charles and Rachel Stamps built the unique house as their retirement home.  It was altered to serve as the nature center, but you can see the basic shape.

The large open area was partitioned with walls but no ceilings.

There was a loft over part of the area and a cupola.

I just thought it was interesting.  I wish they had more pictures that I could shamelessly photograph like I did these three.

We also found some pleasant hiking in neighboring Arcata.  The Arcata Community Forest is a 620 acre forest of 80 to 100 year old redwood, Douglas fir, and spruce.  Not old growth by any means, but I bet they were 100 feet tall.

Wow!  Looks like a train wreck here.

This old growth stump had the notches visible where the loggers would position their springboards.  Misnamed in my opinion since it was just a board the men would jam into the hole to stand on as they cut the tree down.  No springs involved.

(The lower one was just to get up into position.)

We stopped in Arcata where we walked around the cute town square.

And discovered mosaic tiles on a trash can.  Wow!  That's fancy.

Two of the times I was here were during the annual Kinetic Sculpture Race on Memorial Day weekend.  What a hoot!  The sculptures are human-powered works of art that race 42 miles in three days over land, water, and mud.  It's truly amazing.  Click here for some pictures of this year's entries.

A Long Drive

We moved north to Fortuna and Bear River Casino.  This was a perfect spot for us with lots of sun (when it wasn't foggy,) strong internet and phone, no trees to block the TV satellite, level, and quiet.  Oh, and did I mention free?  Now these things are not everybody's idea of perfection, but they're all the things on our list.  We went in to register and the security guys were very nice.  There was a three day limit, although we only stayed two.  It wasn't quite free though, since we went in for one dinner and one breakfast, both of which were very good.

We took the car back south on 101 to the Founders Grove exit so we could drive a loop that looked interesting on the map - west through Rockefeller Forest, out to the coast, and back north through Ferndale to home. We had heard from another tourist that it's a 50 mile trip that takes 5 hours.  I was sure they were exaggerating.  They were not.

Ten thousand acre Rockefeller Forest is the world's largest remaining contiguous old-growth forest of coast redwoods.  It's a few miles off the beaten path, down a road not suitable for RVs, but so worth the trouble.

We stopped at the Big Trees day use area because it sounded like the place to go.  The road into the parking lot was really scenic.

According to the handout, the average mature coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) are from 200 to 240 feet tall with diameters of 10 to 15 feet.  Imagine one in your front yard.

But some exceptional trees get much larger and can live 2000 years.  I think we found the granddaddy of them all.

Forget getting a picture.  You'll just have to go see it yourself.

At this point, we should have turned around, but instead we kept driving.  We continued up and over two passes, and down a valley,

Back to the ocean,

Past Cape Mendocino,

And up and over the Lost Coast Headlands,

Before finally making it back home.  Honestly, I don't recommend the whole loop.

Big Trees

Leaving Westport Union State Park, we continued north on CA 1, which winds up and over a 2000 foot elevation gain, to US 101.  I'm not going to describe this drive for a couple of reasons.  First, you're probably getting tired of hearing about them.  And, second, I drove the car so it wasn't too bad for me.  Ron isn't talking about his experience in the RV.

We stayed two nights at Richardson RV Park, with our half-price Passport America it was $17.85.  This was a good base for exploring the Avenue of the Giants.

At our first stop, I had Ron stand at the base of one of these giant trees.  When he viewed the picture, he mentioned he was barely visible.  I had to break it to him that he was only there to show size.

See him there in front of the tree on the left?

I almost fell over backwards taking this picture.

It's a good thing we only had the car, although Ron did drive this a few years ago in the RV.

At his insistence, we stopped at the privately-owned Shrine Drive Thru Tree in Myers Flat.

Where he also drove on a downed tree.

I loved these adorable 'tree' houses.

I guess all that was worth the $6 entrance fee.

We stopped at the visitors center where we saw this RV which was hand-hewn from one 22 foot section of a 11 foot diameter redwood.

Charles Kellogg created his 'Travel-Log' to show the world the beauty of the coast redwood.

I just wonder how much it weighs.

We bought a sandwich to share at the little store in Myers Flat and just found a pull-off where we could soak up the atmosphere as we ate.

Our final stop was at Founders Grove where the spotlight is on this tree.

When every tree is huge, it becomes difficult to fully appreciate their size, but this was my thought about the Founders Tree.  If it's 190 feet to the first limb that you can barely see, that means there's still 156 feet to the top which you can't see at all.

There were some fallen giants in this grove.  The Dyerville Giant fell in 1991, causing seismograph readings 10 miles away.  It was once estimated to be the world's tallest living thing at 362 feet.  It is 17 feet in diameter, 52 feet in circumference and estimated to weigh a million pounds.

This is not the base of the Dyerville Giant, but a different tree that I could get a picture of.  LOL

Sometimes the trees develop burls.  This one seems to have an abundance of them.

I love these beautiful trees, maybe even more than rocks and barns.