Epic Summer 2014 - California Redwoods, and Lost Coast

Well we have been busy, this summer. What do I remember about Summer 2014?

Eliot's last summer before starting Kindergarten. (Sniffle). I'm excited for him, but also sad that he'll be in school now every day, Mon-Fri, for the rest of his childhood pretty much. *sigh*.

The boys are neck deep into weapon games, fighting games, Star Wars, ninjas, nunchuks, ugh.... It's annoying. They don't play video games, they don't watch violent shows, and they have never seen Star Wars but they hear about it from other kids. They have watched the animated Ninjago shows twice, and I've banned it now because it just gets them all riled up.

In June, we went on a long road trip, car camping down to the Redwoods. We stopped one night near Grants Pass at a very quiet county campground by Wolf Creek on our way. The next night, we met Kate, Howie, Eliza, Gigi, and Amy at Humboldt Redwoods State Park, on the south end of the Redwoods. We stayed three nights doing short hikes, hanging out by and in the Eel River, a little fishing (Brady and Silas, and Eliot a little bit), some campfire singalongs, and learning about big trees and banana slugs. It was fun. On our way out, we even drove through a huge tree outside the park; private; cost $6, I think. Brady wanted to do it. It was kind of sad and disappointing, though.

Kate et al headed home to Berkeley. We went on to Garberville for one night in a hotel -- did laundry, swam in the pool, and Brady watched the U.S. play a World Cup soccer game. We headed on the next day to the Lost Coast and camped one night on the south end, and two nights on the north end (Mattole Beach). It was beautiful and rustic, but windy! And on July 3, although we could have stayed another night, we relinquished our camp site because I was tired of the wind, the campers around us were putting off fireworks which I hate, and we thought it wouldn't be that hard to find a hotel room on the north coast of California on the 4th of July. Were we ever wrong....

We finally found a really crummy motel room in Arcata. We should have stayed at Mattole Beach, but if we had stayed at Mattole, we would have thought we should have left for a hotel, so... you just never know.

On our way home, we stopped in Klamath, CA, at the Trees of Mystery. We learned about Paul Bunyan and Babe, and rode the Gondola to the top of the ridge. It was kind of cool. Kids liked it. And we bought cool kids book about the Redwoods.

The next night we stayed in Gold Beach, at a hotel again although we had a reservation for a camp site at Humbug State Recreation Site on the south coast of Oregon. But the hotel room was nice and we didn't have to set up and break down camp again for just one night. That's always a lot of work.

We finally arrived back home on July 6. The kids were tired of camping.