Spent the day in the Humboldt State Forest among giant redwood trees. The Avenue of the Giants is a 32 mile long two lane road that encompasses 53,000 acres of Redwoods-the largest stand of redwoods in the world. Took us over 6 hours to go the 32 miles because we kept stopping on pull overs and exploring the trees on trails and just on the side of the road. The ones that have fallen are sometimes more interesting that the standing ones. There’s one that’s 370 feet tall, 53 feet around and they estimate it to be 2500 years old. There’s and “immortal tree”, that survived axes, floods, fire and lightning. There’s a house built into a tree, trees you can drive your car through, trees you can drive on, these trees have their own personalities.
There’s a state campground I almost booked us in and when we drove through it there were so many tight turns because of the trees that Harry said if I had booked it he would have planted me in one of the stumps and they would have found me 1000 years from now. Good thing California campgrounds are more expensive than private ones, I guess. That’s what changed my mind.
The whole road parallels the Eel River and when we pulled over to take a picture of the river once there was an eagle that flew right in front of us. And then a hawk that was chasing the eagle. The hawk took off but the eagle landed on a branch on the other side of the river. After we got our breath we watched him for about a half hour hoping he would take off again but he was happy on his branch swaying in the breeze. What a sight!
Stopped in a little town along the way called Miranda and talked with a woodworker who had lots of clocks, table tops, bears, etc. made from the redwood and also made from burls (the rounded parts of the trees). He had tons of wood all over his yard, big pieces, little pieces, any size and shape. He also had a great cat named Simba, who was nineteen and was really affectionate. Stayed in town for dinner and then came back to camp on Route 101. Sunny but cool all day, high about 65, down to 55 at 6pm. There are some more people in the campground tonight. The whole area’s very quiet, the locals say when the kids get out of school it gets busy.