Redwood National and State Parks~ CALIFORNIA

We made it to Northern California on Friday, July 24, 2015 and we saw some Red Wood Trees, Boy!!! Did we see some trees?

We were on Route 101 riding through the Redwood National & State Parks. This segment of Route 101 is also referred to as the ~The Redwood Highway. We have never seen trees as tall or as old as the ones that we saw here. This park is an “Old-Growth temperate rainforest with some of the tallest in the world.

In 1968, The Red Wood National Park was established. This establishment protects the remaining old-growth. It was combined with three other parks: Del Norte Coast, Jedediah Smith & Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. The state parks cover 133,000 acres.  They are located in Humboldt County & Del Norte County which is near Crescent City, California.

We stayed at a wonderful hotel in Crescent City, California that evening, The Lighthouse Inn. It was directly across from a bay. The room was very large holding 2 king size beds. A tan colored over-stuff soft leather love seat was also in the room. I immediately noticed the wall paper borders around the top of the room ~red roses. The bed spreads were a similar pattern of the red roses. In the guest laundry area, the wall paper borders were lighthouses. This was one of our laundry times.  I took pictures of the model lighthouses in the lobby and also of the miniature model houses. During check out, we notices the redwood counter – beautiful.

Back to the trees.

During check out, we were told about Klamath, California and also about the Avenue of the Giants. There are three large drive through trees. The Avenue has the two largest ones and Klamath has the smaller one. We also learned that the location of the giant sequoia trees are in the “Sequoia & King Canyon National Park” and that the park is under construction. We will not be able to see General Sherman, the biggest tree in the world.

Our first stop was Klamath, California. Jim drove up a steep hill but before the bike went down, I had to get off. He then got in line to drive the motorcycle right thru the tree. The tree was gigantic. A path had been cut out of the trunk so that cars can drive thru it. Above the path, there was a sign that said, “TOUR THRU TREE” While inside of the tree, Jim said that he touch it and also saw the age rings. We were told that this is a giant live tree that is 275 years old.

Next we drove on the Avenue of the Giants. This is a 31 mile scenic drive. It is 200 miles north of San Francisco and 100 miles south of the Oregon border. We saw Ancient Redwoods. While enjoying nature, we saw several trunks on the side of the road parked for a filming crew. I Google it and learned that Kirsten Dunst was filming a movie on that day named, Woodshock. This was a glorious day.