Avenue of the Giants

We made it to the Redwoods!  This place was spectacular.  You'd think after you'd seen one giant tree after another, you'd be done with it, but Nope!  Let me tell you, it was just amazing.  We are kind of tree lovers, not to be confused with tree-huggers, so we weren't too worried about being bored with it anyways.  Our necks hurt from looking up so much in sheer amazement at these beauties!  We could've spent weeks there exploring around.  We had so much fun and it was by far our favorite part of the trip.

Now warning, these pictures in No WAY do this place justice.  You really just need to go there yourself!  Tyson kept saying, "Did you get a picture of that?  How about this?", and when I looked at them in the camera it just looked like any ordinary tree that I'd see on a drive through the mountains around here.  So yes, I need some camera lessons and different lenses, but its tricky to take pictures in the dark forest and really its best just to go there in person!

There are many different Redwood parks, and the first one we went to was Humboldt State Park with the world-famous "Avenue of the Giants" drive.  This is the classic Redwood drive.  Its 30 miles long, and I think it only took us about 3 hours to get through, actually probably 4!  Yep, just had to keep stopping and taking detours and checking these ancient trees out.  We learned a lot - they are fire-resistant (no wonder why they are humungous) and the only living part of them is just inside the bark.  They grow tallest in the lowest part of the valley, and they grow in-land from the ocean because they don't like to absorb the salt-water air. 

Just sitting inside the dead tree.

Standing in the hole that the tree left - you can't really tell, but it was a massive hole!

Sitting in a bed of clovers