I'm interrupting this blog's long winter's nap with some news

Erica and I braved 19 degree Black Friday early morning temps to stand in line for a bit at Best Buy for a new camera. Crass, I know, but James was already well up, Cheryl was willing to watch him crawl around for awhile (we're in Naperville), and we figured there was no point in waiting for them to sell out of the door buster camera deal we've had our eye for quite awhile.

After much research, we settled on the pricey-but-worth-it Sony a6000 as our Christmas present to one another.  We weren't really satisfied with the quality of pictures we were getting from our point-and-shoot (which also lately has developed a spot on the sensor which appears as a dark blob in every shot), so we pulled the trigger on something that we hope will take excellent pictures and do so for many years. 

I'm a complete photography novice past "point the camera at desired object and press button," so I've been reading up on how to use all of the bewildering options this camera has, as well as some of the basic manual settings know-how that will allow me to make the most of what it offers.  So far, so...decent?  Yesterday's shots were a mixed bag, save when the auto function was on; I went outside this morning to take picture of the snow, and ended up with a lot of white-outs (again, unless the auto settings were engaged.)  Still, I'm very happy with the quality of the good ones.

Here's a sampling from this morning:

This one got a bit overexposed

There's a little bird in there, making this Nature Photography

The James shots turned out pretty well.  We did a photo shoot for our upcoming Christmas card, and I also got some good ones of him ranging over the house:

We're excited to set the camera loose on our sure-to-be-scenic trip to Puerto Rico over Christmas vacation with mom and dad, Aunt Molly and Uncle Mark, and Silva and Claire.  We'll have full daily reports.

Grant

Day 10: Home

We left Novato, or rather the Days Inn located on a deserted stretch of highway outside of Novato, around 10 and headed toward Oakland for our return flight.  With just a bit of time to spare, we stopped off at Oakland's surprisingly cool Jack London Square and strolled a farmer's market that wasn't selling a single organic thing.  JUST KIDDING.

Jack London Square is the home of Heinold's First and Last Chance, a tiny shack of a bar so named because, for sailors, it was the first chance to get liquored up when coming ashore and the last chance to do so before setting sail.  Jack London himself drank there, often before heading out on one of his adventures to the great white north.  Since it wasn't yet 11:30am, it was closed.

The plane ride home was not quite as smooth as the ride out, but it certainly could have been worse.  All in all, Erica and I are agreed that James performed spectacularly on this trip, and that he has promise as a world traveler, whenever such an opportunity may arise.

Actually, it semi will this December, when we jet with my folks and the Carlsons to sunny Puerto Rico!  So, this blog will return then, but perhaps even a bit sooner with little snippets of things here and there.


--Grant

Day 9: PCH

Erica and I drove the PCH from San Diego to Sonoma County on our honeymoon.  This trip, we went the other way--from way up in the north down to the Bay.  We didn't manage to get in the little blip of about 5 miles north of Crescent City into Oregon, nor the little blip from Bolinas, where we ended the day, to Muir Beach, just north of Frisco (the locals love it when you call it that).  But we've now covered 99% of that magnificent stretch of tarmac, so that's gotta be worth something.

We were worried that today was going to be a bad day for James because it involved so much driving time.  We needn't have.  He was a grand champion sleeper in the car today, possibly because of his amazing genes, possibly because the road was as serpentine as they come, and driving on it felt like rocking to him. (I wanted to write "the road was windy", as in, it winded a lot.  Like a clock that one winds.  Not "windy."  Like a lot of wind blowing around.  Roads don't blow wind, of course, but it's hard to dislodge the homograph "windy" from one's mind when writing "windy" because "windy" is a much more commonly encountered word. You follow me?)

We made it almost two hours before he stirred, all the way from Ft. Bragg to the tiny art colony of Jenner.  We stopped, stretched, and had the best clam chowder I've ever tasted at a little roadside stand run by extremely crunchy hippies.  James loved the view from the back porch of the Russian River meeting the Pacific Ocean:

Cool handmade hat courtesy of Mary Ernesti

The drive south of Jenner was beautiful.  We woke a sleepy James to take a series of pictures, the best one of which is this:

At Sonoma State Beach

But I'm also kind of partial to this one, too:

We cruised into Point Reyes Station around 2:30 and met up with John and Kaity Hunt for some cheese tasting at an artisanal/organic/local/etc. creamery. Incidentally, the town of Pt. Reyes Station sits at the foot of Tamales Bay, a long finger of water that separates the Pt. Reyes Peninsula from Marin County. The Bay itself sits atop a submerged portion of the San Andreas Fault, meaning that the land on the other side of the Bay is one of the very few pieces of our continent that are not part of the North American Techtonic Plate. Is it xenophobic to find that weird?

The mountain in the background is not one of us.

After Pt. Reyes, we headed to the small surfing hamlet of Bolinas, which is famous for not wanting visitors. So much so, in fact, that the New York Times has done no less than two separate travel features on its notorious misanthropy in the last decade, and every guide book mentions how the locals tear down road signs pointing to their town. Bolinas itself was quite packed today with tourists. We walked along its dark sand beach for awhile watching surfers in the frigid waves, and then headed into town for a beer and some fresh calamari.

With the Hunts at cold and windy Bolinas Beach

Kudos to baby James, who has now visited both American oceans before turning five months!

We left John and Kaity in Bolinas and headed to our hotel in pleasant Novato for our trip's last evening. James, who had refused to sleep the whole afternoon, dropped off to dreamland almost immediately after we took off.  Tomorrow it's back home and back to the grind.  But it's not tomorrow yet, so we'll hang on to vacation as long as we can.

Thorn: Nearing the end of vacation.

Rose: The Hunts, PCH views

Bud: The Golden Gate bridge tomorrow--I'm always a sucker.

Car Miles: 190.5

Total Miles: 3141

Day 8: Forest to Coast

James slept until 7:45 this morning, which means that upon awaking ourselves we felt pretty damn good.  Lest you think the California coast is one long stretch of sun-kissed bikini bimbos frolicking playfully in the warm surf, I'm here to tell you that north of, say, Los Angeles, its mostly fog and chill.  It was about 55 and cloudy when we left Eureka's sublime Rodeway Inn and we didn't find warmer weather until we got to Humboldt Redwoods State Park further inland.

Humboldt Redwoods proudly serves up the largest contiguous swath of old growth Coastal Redwoods in the world.  And because it boasts both a protective mountain range to the west that blocks the coastal marine layer and massive alluvial plains along the Eel River and its tributary Bull Creek--perfect conditions for redwoods--it grows 'em big. 100 of the tallest 134 trees in the world are in this park, including 7 of the top 10.  How about that, huh?  This is a blog where you learn stuff.

We started out in the Founders Grove, a grove of huge trees named after the founders of the Save-the-Redwood League.  The StRL were a group of bourgeois alarmists who had had enough of the lumber baronage chopping down every tall tree in the state.  Founded in 1918, the League spent its time and money (it raised over $300,000,000 in today's dollars!) convincing other landed elite not connected to Big Timber to buy up redwood land. They were wildly successful for an environmental charity in early-20th century terms, and most of the old growth areas today owe their continued existence to their efforts.  Anyway, back to the Grove.

It was boss.  The centerpiece of the grove is the Founders Tree, named for the founders of the League. At 364 feet, it's is 59 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty + pedestal, and quite girthy.  Here's a snapper of the giant:

Another curio of the Grove is the so-called Dyerville Giant, a 2,000 year old titan which stood 370 feet when it toppled in 1991 (here's a dated but interesting story about its fall).  I had been wondering about the rate that these bad boys decay, given that a.) many of the fallen trees seem to have been there rotting away for quite a long while, and b.) the forest floor isn't particularly littered with them.  The only answer could be that they fall over very rarely, which makes one appreciate that time in these forests moves much, much slower than it does for us (and MUCH slower than it does for the poor mayfly, whose lifespan lasts all of one day).  In places like the Founders Grove, an entire decade might pass with nothing happening of significance, save for the trees silently growing about 6 feet.  When one does go over, it's big news, like Brigadoon appearing.  The unlucky tree will then rot there for 50 years until it turns into loam, and, in time, other redwoods.

The Dyerville Giant helped put all of this in perspective. It has been 23 years now since it fell, and yet it still very much looked like a tree lying on its side.  Here are some pictures to give you some idea of what I'm talking about:

Erica at the base

James, holding things down in the foreground, and Erica way, way, down the at the midpoint of the trunk, basically invisible to all except those who can somehow zoom in on their computer screens

Erica took this picture from the midpoint of the trunk, at the same spot at which she is standing in the above picture.  That's me way down there at the top of the tree.  See, it's BIG!

After gaping at these trees for awhile, we drove to the inventively-named "Big Trees" section of the park.  Erica strapped James into our (borrowed) Ergo side-carry style and we had a very nice 2.4 mile walk in the woods.  James love it.  Erica got peed on, but enjoyed it nevertheless in a matronly sort of way.  

Happy Hikers

With James' nap time growing near, we packed things up and hit the road.  We had big plans to go see Mendocino tonight, but it was slow-going on Highway 1, with its twists and turns, so we landed in Ft. Bragg, checked in to our hotel, and headed out for dinner.  James made it most of the way through our meal at the absolutelyamazingandtotallyawesome North Coast Brewing taproom, where I partook of the beer sampler and calamari steak (this is the second time we've encountered "calamari steak" on this trip.  I've never seen it before in my life.  It's a thing?).  Then the boy kind of lost it, so we took him back to the hotel and put him down for the night.

Tomorrow is a long day in the car, and it will be interesting to see how James handles it.  He has been very, very good so far, easily exceeding his parents expectations, but we've got over 4 hours of car seat time planned, and it's going to be an adventure.  We're hopeful to meet up with John and Katie Hunt in Pt. Reyes Station for some cheese tasting tomorrow afternoon.  Let's hope we make it there without incident/meltdown.

Thorn: hmmm...long car rides?  They are beautiful, though...
Roses: Dyreville Giant and the Bull Creek Flats hike
Bud: the secretive town of Bolinas

Car miles: 135
Total miles: 2950.5

Day 7: Behind the Redwood Curtain

We left dreary Crescent City and the even drearier Curly Redwood Lodge around 9am and hopped on Highway 101 South to Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.  The schedule today was light, and we took a few short treks though the flat alluvial plains of the park where the behemoths grow.  The pace was slack, but the scenery was alllll right. James mostly slept during our first set of walks, which were level enough to take the stroller.  Erica was on her photographical game today.

I'm calling this the Handstand Tree

Here's another shot of the ol' Handstander from farther back.  I'm the tiny human one at the bottom.

And I snapped this one of Erica shortly thereafter:

We had been told that the gem of Prairie Creek was Fern Canyon, with its 50-foot fern covered vertical stone walls.  We took a seemingly endless dirt road to Gold Bluffs Beach, where we espied some rare Roosevelt Elk, and then drove another 4 miles along the beach to the base of Fern Canyon.  Sadly, it turned out to be more or less a Turkey Run-type affair, albeit a bit greener.  I love Turkey Run, but as far as natural wonderment on this trip goes: thorn.

Leaving Prairie Creek, we headed to the be-bike laned, bicycle recycling program-initiating, uber-crunchy, Arcata, billed as the most progressive city in America. In 2003, it outlawed voluntary compliance with the Patriot Act and its city council several times voted to impeach George W. Bush.  Indeed, their city council has outlawed many wasteful, harmful, and illiberal things.  The town is so liberal that it seems you're not allowed to do anything.  

Our plan was a loose one, and it consisted of just strolling around town checking out just how many head shops one small seaside village can cram into its downtown.  The main square was very pretty, and so we threw a towel down and let James roll around in the shade for awhile.  A kindly, bearded young man in a tie dye t-shirt sat nearby and played Grateful Dead songs on his acoustic guitar (not kidding).  After while I began to notice more hippie-type guys and gals, though not necessarily of the friendly bearded variety.  More of the it-was-cool-when-I-was-20-and-unwashed-and-reading-Jack-Kerouac-novels-to-move-to-California-with-no-job-plans-other-than-to-kindly-panhandle-but-now-I'm-35-and-still-unwashed-and-still-in-California-and-just-as-poor-and-I've-got-a-drug-habit-to-feed-and-my-panhandling-has-gotten-rather-more-aggressive variety.  So we split, and headed to Eureka's fabulous Rodeway Inn, where I now sit typing this.  

We had a lovely dinner of indifferent pub grub and pretty good, but hardly world-beating, craft brews at Lost Cost Brewery.  James slept through the whole thing like a good boy.  Tomorrow, it's off to Humboldt Redwoods State Park, our last redwoods park.

Thorn: Fern Canyon, slow drivers on one lane roads

Rose: Great morning redwood hikes

Bud: Humboldt Redwoods, the largest tract of old growth redwoods in existence.

--Grant

Day 6: Into Endor

After leaving Medford this morning, we had to make a stop for supplies in Grants Pass and the only thing available was Walmart.  I won't normally shop there, but we were in a pinch (no diaper wipes).  It was gray and depressing and it was my thorn.  Moving on...

James napped well in the car, so we made it all the way to the splendiferous Jedidiah Smith Redwood State Park, aka Endor.  Words fail.  Pictures don't really give the sense of the hugeness of the trees, either, but they're better.  Lot of vertical, "hotdog" style photos today, as opposed to the normal "hamburger" ones, owning the need to capture tree height.  Our first stop was the legendary Stout Grove, where the following was seen:

Man (center)

Posing with roots, taken from atop a fallen tree

The eponymous Stout Tree, but with us by it

Having completed the relatively flat and stroller friendly Stout Grove loop, we headed in the car up Howland Hill Drive--the "world's best redwood drive"--and unpaved gravel track that darts between massive trees.  I have for some time been sort of obsessed with record trees.  In preparation for this trip, I sussed out the approximate location, using various clues interspersed throughout the internet, of the so-called "Grove of the Titans", and secret, unmarked redwood grove home to three of the world's five largest Coastal Redwoods.  The Grove's exact location is kept secret by the government to minimize foot traffic (a decision that is controversial; in the age of the internet, the location is an open secret, and the Grove now gets plenty of visitors daily.  Sensible folks are calling for the state to mark it and provide appropriate infrastructure to ensure its well-being).  I wasn't sure if we were going to be able to find it, what with a sketchy map and a 4.5 month old in a carrier in tow.  But we had plenty of time and enough will, so we gave it a shot.

We parked out car at a roadside turnoff and took the stunning Mill Creek trail south from where it intersected the road.  The first section of the trail was mostly uphill and, like all of our hikes today, stunning.

After half a mile, the trail began to descend toward the stream. At the bottom of the valley, we found ourselves amid some fallen giants.

Once we cleared the tunnel, I knew we had to be close. I was looking for a spot where the trail switchbacked just before the stream.  And, sure, enough, right where I thought it would be, it was there.  I went in part way, but refrained from going up to the trees themselves.  James was in the carrier, and the small footpath, such as it was, led through a bog and was not a great place to risk taking an infant.  As such, Erica and I (and James, who had just woken up), enjoyed the majesty of the Grove from about 50 feet away.  James was, frankly, nonplussed, and dared to crab about some inconsequence in front of leviathans who stood here a thousand years before Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo.  From across the small glade, I snapped this picture of the Lost Monarch, the world's largest Coastal Redwood tree:

The Lost Monarch

After staring our eyes out for awhile at the bohemoths of the Grove, we headed back to the car.  James was more or less done with the carrier, so I carried him in my arms all the way back, which he LOVED.  We managed to snap this picture just before the end of the hike.

We squeezed in one more easy hike, the Simspon-Reed loop, where I got to stand in between two trees and put my arms out.

Like this.

With eyeballs full of tree, we made our way into Crescent City, a fishing community on the California/Oregon border where it's foggy and cold 90% of the year (including today).  Tonight we're bedded down in the Curly Redwood Lodge, a late 50's-style kitsch motel that's unfortunately more 50's than kitsch.  Fun fact: then entire motel is made from the wood of a single redwood tree!  Neato! (note: sheets may be made of same).

Thorn: Walmart :(

Rose: Grove of the Titans

Bud: More trees, please.

Car Miles: 116

Total Miles: 2598.5

--Grant

Day 5: Lakin'

The Fearsome Threesome were up at half-past five this morning.  Mt. Shasta was still slumbering in the clouds when the pitter-patter of little grunts and squeals could be heard coming from the pack-n-play.  We decided to take advantage of the unexpectedly early wake-up call and hit the road.  Our plans to take Highway 97 to Klamath Falls, OR were scrapped when we got news that a big section of it had been closed off by fire crews.  So we took Interstate 5 to Medford, and drove to Crater Lake from there, instead (interesting details!) Although the visibility was basically beef stroganoff, there were still some mighty good mountain scenery to be had.  Crossing into Oregon in what looked more like the dry Colorado plateau than the Pacific Northwest was a particular highlight.  Erica was asleep.

James conceded us almost two hours of driving time this morning, so we made it all the way to the Union Creek historic settlement about 20 miles from Crater Lake until he woke up displeased to be in the car seat again.  We fed him under a canopy of 200 ft. Douglas firs and afterwards stumbled upon this photo op:

The Edith Ann of his generation

Construction during the busiest month in the park is always a great idea, and it's the one the fine folks at Crater Lake had this week.  It took us nearly an hour to get to the caldera rim (~7100 ft.) from Union Creek because the one road kept going down to one lane.  I was to the point of regretting having come all the way up here.  Crater Lake is in the middle of absolutely nowhere, which, since we were going to be in the very general vicinity of it, made me want to go there, because when are you ever going to find yourself in this remote part of Oregon again?  Sure, you might go to Portland, but that's 250 miles from here. Anyway, Crater Lake used to be a mountain--Mt. Mazama--to be exact, which blew its stack roughly 7,700 years ago, collapsed in on itself, and filled with rain and snow.  It's just the deepest lake in the US, no biggie, with water so clear you can see down over 120 feet.  Another interesting fact, which I find literally unbelievable: the native people, the Klamath tribe, tell a story about two warring gods, one represented by Crater Lake and the other Mt. Shasta, hurling fire and boulders at one another, which anthropologists have identified as having derived from this cataclysm.  Could this event, which occurred over 5,000 years before the Great Pyramid of Giza was built, have lingered in a pre-literate peoples' memory for so long?  YOU BE THE JUDGE!

Anyway, I was still fuming at the traffic when we hit the rim.  And then I changed my mind:

Fwuh-POW! Crater Lake

Moreover

Ba-Zing! That's Wizard Island in the background.

Furthermore

Gaack!

And

Glug!

Finally

Zounds!

James celebrated this feeding in the most beautiful of places with a fantastic blowout that forced Erica and I to throw out a large picnic blanket that she had received free from work.  We didn't get to tackle a whole lot of the park unfortunately.  If we never come back, we'll be able to say we were here; if we do make it back, there's still plenty to do.  The ride home was a quiet one. We arrived in Medford, checked in to our hotel, the enjoyed the tasty offerings of BricktownE Brewing.  Tomorrow: the redwoods!

Thorns: Traffic in the middle of the woods

Roses: Didn't break any glass!  Also, the lake, duh.

Buds: Jed Smith State Park and a potential detour to Oregon Caves? Stay tuned, dear readers.

Car Miles: 246

Total Miles: 2482.5

--Grant