The Redwoods, Day Three: Lady Bird

Day Three of our adventuring got off to a slow and rough start.  You know how sometimes on vacation, you just can't seem to get going?  Well, that was today.  Lots of in and out of the car.  Lots of fighting boys.  Lots of wrong roads.





We started our morning with a visit to Humbolt University in Arcata.  We wanted to find the bookstore to look for a souvenir.  We finally found the bookstore, but not without some 8 and under bruised knees and egos.  Like I said, it was a rough morning.  The bookstore however, was a little on the lame side so we left with nothing more that two key chains.  One of which we had to buy because Quinn declared it his and ripped off the price tag.

Next stop was a gas station for a drink - from a soda fountain that didn't work - and a bathroom break - from a dirty bathroom that you had to get the key and make a purchase - but the soda fountain didn't work.  The boys got a drink so we could pee.  Then, it was a few miles up the road to Trinidad to see a lighthouse, that wasn't nearly as impressive as I thought it would be.  A light house that is on land, and no longer out on the rocks generally isn't that impressive.  Nor are the "tide pools" that aren't actually tide pools but just the jagged rocks that you can see when low tide is out.  We did though, eat at the lighthouse grill in Trinidad and they had great garlic fries.





We suffered from some severe bathroom problems on our trip.  These bathroom problems required a lot of stopping - preventative and necessary.  We ate lunch at noon, but felt like we'd already stopped a thousand times to use the bathroom.

Finally, we were on our way after what felt like a wasted morning.  I have to admit I was getting a little nervous that the trip was going downhill, and I wanted it to be spectacular.  Little did I know that Lady Bird Johnson had something spectacular in store for me.

In the 1960's LBJ's wife worked with then Governor Ronald Reagan to save the redwoods.  Because of her apparently valiant efforts, they preserved a whole grove of trees (hundreds of acres) in her name and made a one mile scenic walking loop through the grove.  Here you can walk and touch and gaze and these giant trees.  It's not a drive by like the Drury road the day before, but it's up close and personal.  Like if you could touch the gorilla at the zoo instead of just looking at him through very thick glass.  I have absolutely no words for the trees.  I realized that I love trees more than I ever had any idea and I was pretty sure, walking through this grove, that at least for me, this is what heaven looks like.  It was just spectacular, amazing, delightful.  There aren't enough adjectives to describe the beauty that exists in this forest.  I'd just never seen anything like it in my entire life.  At one point, our little family got separated and I seriously thought for a moment that maybe Ross and Quinn had been swept away by a forest inhabitant.









I told Willie in my weekly e-mail that I'm certain these forests are inhabited by fairies and gnomes, pixies and trolls and the like.  He replied and told me that after living in Lithuania for the past year, and experiencing some of it's forests, he too believes that mythical creatures exist, and that they are just much smarter than the people who are looking for them.  After visiting the redwoods, it has definitely got to be true.









We left Lady Bird and decided that it would be fun to drive through down town Eureka and spend the late afternoon, before dinner wandering through a cute small town.  Two problems with that.  One, Eureka (and Arcata) were hosting a "kinetic sculpture race" and the towns were full of weirdos and two, Eureka is not a cute small town.  It is a gross small town.  We really spent the whole day just driving around aimlessly it seems so once we gave up on that, we headed to dinner.  A roadside burger joint with duck taped seats called Toni's.  It was delicious.  One more fabulous food stop on our trip.

The boys were done being in the car by this point and really wanted to hang out at the beach house and let's face it, we were all done being int he car at this point, so with a day close enough to being over, we headed back to our rental and spend the evening reading Charlotte's web, watching movie's on phones (because there was no Internet service on the island where the house was) and generally having a really nice evening "at home".