Paul Bunyan chops down Stout's Grove

Yesterday, I didn't blog because we didn't have enough outlets in the room for the laptop! We were in a hotel made from a redwood tree and there were like 2 outlets. We have 3 phones, 3 tablets, an ipod and a camera to charge every night. We need outlets! Anyway, I'll start with yesterday.

July 5
Yesterday, we left Oregon and headed for California, but not before stopping at Oregon Caves. To walk in the cave you had to bend over and lean to get around formations. They are big on not touching anything in there, but it was hard to maneuver. A scary part came when an elderly gentleman tumbled off the path. His party did not continue the tour. We saw him later having his arm wrapped up - we hope he is OK. When we got into California, we were at the top of the redwood forests. We went to Stout's Grove where the closing scene of Return of the Jedi was filmed - the scene where everyone is dancing around in the Ewok village.The size of the trees was impressive. We have not done a lot of highway driving - most of it is up and down windy, twisty mountain roads. Last night, as I said, we stayed in a room made of redwood - very quaint.

Today, July 6
We started this morning hiking to a lighthouse island that can only be walked to during low tide. The kids enjoyed walking along the rocks looking for crabs. OK, 2 of the kids - one was adamant that he did not want to be pinched. More windy and twisty roads and we reached the Trees of Mystery. Yes, a litlle bit of a tourist trap, but we enjoyed our visit. There is a giant Paul Bunyan statue that talks to you as you are looking at it, like it replies back to you if you say something to it. The main part were the trails and the gondola ride. We hiked through impressive redwood forests to get to a gondola that would take us up to the top of the mountain. I liked that the gondolas only seated 6, so we had our own car.  At the top of the mountain, the views off the mountain side were pretty, but there was a lot of fog on the ocean side, unfortunately. We drove through more windy twisty roads to a couple of other redwood sites, including driving our car through a tree, and then headed on to Fort Bragg, where we are now. The road to get here was up and down and around, we were all a little green when we finally got out of the car. We did ride along the ocean for awhile - you can't beat the views. Tonight as we were going to dinner, we saw the sun setting over the ocean - a beautiful site and a nice way to end a very scenic day.

Tomorrow we are headed to Mendocino - the TV town of Cabot Cove and then on to Reno. We'll keep you posted!

Note: still no luggage carts or AC