Today we drove from Eureka and continued our way north stopping through Redwood National Park. The man at our hotel in Eureka gave us some advice on what to see inside the Redwoods and it was great information! He told us to go to a place called "Fern Canyon" which required driving down a scenic dirt road for about ten miles. We were concerned about the Mustang making it but it turns out that car can somewhat be considered an "off road vehicle" sometimes... maybe once a year.... on a good day.... Fern Canyon was beautiful! It was were one of the Jurrasic Park movies was filmed so you can imagine the "out of this world" scenery we found there. The park used to be submerged under the ocean about 300 million years ago and as the sea retreated it carved this deep canyon which is where we found ourselves today. There is still a decent sized stream that runs down the canyon and the walls of the canyon are about one hundred feet tall. The walls of the canyon are covered in "Five Finger Ferns," ferns that look like they have five long fingers... In the floor of the canyon are massive stumps from trees that have died and fallen into the canyon. The trees are now covered in all sorts of different types of mosses and creepy critters. It was nice to walk through this canyon and get out of the car for a bit. The man that took our money at the entrance was very surprised to see us there at 8 am and commended us for being the go getters we are! It's worth it to get places early in my opinion, there wasn't another soul in the canyon when we went and as we were leaving the parking lot afterwards about five different minivans full of people showed up.
After the Fern Canyon we drove through a place called Elk Meadows which contains a species of elk that were on the verge of extinction but now survive in small quantities in the Redwoods. This type of elk are known as Roosevelt elk and they live in the grassy fields on the outsides of the forest. Back in the 50's Elk Meadows was owned by a farmer so a lot of foreign grasses still grow in this meadow and that is mostly what the elk eat. Because of this habitat the elk pretty much stay put (like the deer in Mount Olivet Cemetary in SLC) and so it is very likely you will see this herd when you drive through. We were in fact fortunate enough to see the elk (and the cute babies!) and we took a lot of awesome pics!
After Elk Meadows we took the scenic drive through the Redwoods and saw all of the massive trees. Maya fell asleep on our way out and I saw another sign telling us to "drive through a tree" and after feeling so defeated from the day before I decided it was probably best not to wake Maya up and to keep driving... The rest of the drive was pretty but mostly uneventful. I passed another big herd of elk (Maya was still asleep). Turns out driving is quite boring when the co-pilot is asleep....
As we crossed the border into Oregon we were instantly connected back to the coast. We saw crystal blue water and amazing black cliffs and rocks which added a nice contrast to the white sand. The Oregon coast has been very beautiful so far and right now we are in Coos Bay Oregon at a local Motel 6. We each get our own bed which is fancy and we have a great view of the parking lot and our car which... hey I'm not complaining it's nice to be able to keep an eye on your car!
Tomorrow we are driving the rest of the way through Oregon and into Washington where we will camp in a place called Chinook. I probably won't have WiFi to post but I will write anyways and post it when I can. I had a similar situation today... The Motel 6 is playing a cruel joke on us and making us pay $2.99 to use the WiFi... I mean come on who pays for WiFi in hotels anymore get with the times... It's not even the principle of the thing that has kept me from paying the $2.99 (I'm still feeling bitter about the wasted $5 on a tree we couldn't even drive through...). The reason I have not paid for this service is because you have to enter your credit card information online and I'm just not sure I really want to do that... If I could just hand the lovely lady at the front office some cold hard cash that might be one thing.... But I digress
We will be in touch and hopefully I will have this posted tomorrow morning! (7/31)
