It was early on Thursday when we left Mount Shasta. I think around 8:00 a.m. if I remember correctly. We were expecting an important phone call and needed to get to someplace we had reception. As it turns out when we did finally get to a Verizon zone, we called Verizon to see why we could not make calls in a digital roaming area. They told us something like "we never selected that service" which didn't make since. We've called while roaming before, but I guess it was an analog roam. Anyway, we finally got the whole thing straightened out.
Anyway, we drove down to Redding and picked up Hwy 299 heading west to the coastline. Hwy 299 was a beautiful scenic route with a river running along side that reminded us of Hwy 64 in western North Carolina.
It wasn't long before we reached Hwy 101 in Eureka. Turning northward, we began to think about were we camp for the next couple of nights. The first place we stopped was a state park, but it didn't have any hookups. The next place had plenty of hookups, but didn't allow dogs over 20 lbs. Finally we settled in at the Mad River RV Park.
We choose the only 50 amp site they had left. After leveling the motorhome, hooking up the electric, water, and everything else, I made a discovery. Wouldn't you know that the only tree on the camp site was in direct line with the Datastorm satellite and blocking the internet! So I had to unhook everything, pull the slides in and setup everything again on a different site that was only 30 amps. Argh!
Afterwards, we went out to the pizza place for dinner and then stopped by the grocery store to restock the refrigerator and pantry.
On Friday we drove north on Hwy 101 in the Blazer so we could make all the small stops that we would not be able to make in the motorhome. This also allowed us to do some Geocaching and find some interesting places.
Our first stop was a Geocache located just a few miles away. It was the worlds largest totem pole standing at 160 feet tall and carved out of 500 year old California redwood. You know if it wasn't for Geocaching, we would not have found this place because there are no signs along the highway saying it is here. If you don't know about Geocaching you should go to their website at www.geocaching.com and find out more. Just do a search in your zip code and you'll be surprised at how many are in your area.
We made a couple of more stops along the coastline before coming upon a bunch of elk just relaxing in a field about 200 feet off the highway. Jake was going crazy inside the Blazer. He wanted to get out and start chasing them!
A little further down, we decided to take a side street that led up into the forest. At the end was a creek which we stopped and enjoyed. Lucas and Adam started skipping rocks which they are finally starting to get the hang of it. Jake had a great time running around and jumping in and out of the water.
We continued north along Hwy 101 stopping at the Redwood forest. Those trees are huge! We hiked a short hike to the largest tree called obviously "The Big Tree". It was 304 feet tall and 21 1/2 feet around and 1500 years old. They had a bunch of other interesting looking trees there. The one I thought was most interesting was another tree that was growing on top of a larger tree trunk that had fallen over.
Further up the road was one of the large Redwood trees that had been hollowed out in the middle so you can drive a car through it. We just had to get a photo of that!
Our last stop for the day was all the way up in Klamath, California, another place I found on Geocaching. I'm sure many of you have seen photos of the giant Paul Bunyon and Babe statue. Well we found them here in northern California. These things are huge also! We posed for a couple of photos then took a tour through the "Trees of Mystery" park. The Trees of Mystery is a private park showcasing some unique Redwood tree arrangements. They even have a Sky Trail ski lift which takes you up and over the forest to get a birds eye view. There's also a giant redwood there called the "Family Tree". It is a unique tree in that it has I think nine more trees growing up from its branches.
This morning we leave here and will be heading north along the coast up to Oregon. I'll be back in a few days with another update and I'm sure a bunch more photos.
See you soon,
Mark
