Hello CA - Trinidad and the Redwood Forest

Well, we were back in California for the first time since the end of July. Our first stop was not far across the border in Trinidad. We stayed at The Emerald Forest, a beautiful resort that really felt like authentic west coast camping. The grounds included at least 10 cabins, some old enough to have a blanket of moss covering their roof shingles, and both tent and RV campsites. The picture to the left of Jeff and a redwood stump is actually IN our campsite - I am standing next to the car to take the shot. We were so thankful to be staying in our very own little Redwood Forest since Jeff got very ill while we were there. I still think it was allergies; he got very dizzy and couldn't hear (worse than normal) for the better part of the two days we were there. Behind our campsite they were storing chipped redwood for compost or mulch to keep the campground pristine. It smelled really lovely and woodsy, like the first day that you bring in your Christmas tree, but was so extreme that it was perhaps too much for Jeff. Since we were facing two days of rain, we decided that we had better get in a little bit of sight seeing before it was too late.

What a pretty and secluded site!

Directly Overhead at our site

I was happy to drive, even in the rain, but was so thankful that we didn't have to bring Betty along! We drove just 20 minutes or so back north to Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. By the time we got there, it was in fact raining and we weren't up for a hike anyway, so we just drove the park and hopped out for an occasional picture.

Can't get the top
of the tree in the
picture!

Yes, Jeff was sick, but it was impossible to understand the scale of these trees without something or someone else in the composition. The California Coastal Redwood is the tallest living thing on Earth! We learned that only about 5% of the world's old-growth redwoods are still in existence and 95% of those are in California. Redwood National and three state parks are co-managed by the National and California Park Services, protecting about 80% of the old-growth redwoods still gracing our planet. With all of the fires in Oregon and California this year, we are glad that the old redwoods continue to stand even in their dwindling numbers after 20 million years!

The coast redwood is not usually referred to as a Sequoia, although it is in the same family and technically is a type of Sequoia. Instead, the name Sequoia generally refers to the giant redwoods that are only found on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. We won't be visiting them until at least sometime in 2018.

Also seen in the park was a herd of Roosevelt Elk. I learned later that mating season is from August to October and it was mid October. Fortunately again, Jeff was the one to jump out of the car to take the elk photos in the rain. We observed (from a distance) several bull elk who must have already claimed their cows since they didn't seem too upset to be hanging out together.

Five Guys

He with the biggest antlers guards the haram

No redwoods were harmed in the making of this blog....Just north of the park land was a private property advertising a Tour Through Tree. That sounded like one of those touristy things that you need to do once in your life, so we did. It was a very tight squeeze. Apparently there is a very handy feature on Sally, when you touch the side mirrors to something, they automatically fold in. I only touched on the passenger side but was very close on the driver's side which of course I could see more easily. For $5 it was worth it. If you ever do this yourself, remember to turn off your headlights. None of the pictures came out while we were actually inside the tree for this reason...

We also ventured into the small but very nice town of Trinidad and walked up Trinidad head. They had a couple of nice restaurants and a very good grocery store. We found it very interesting that UCSD has an Air Measurement station at the very top of the head. Although it didn't seem that windy when we were there, you could tell that we were at some sort of wind and surf cross roads by the turmoil of waves coming into the cove.

Raucous Waves

On the calm side of the head were a lovely beach and home to the commercial fishing pier. Trinidad looked like a seasonal summer resort, but fishing and crabbing in the winter high season gives the natives reason to live there year round. It was really a lovely area but likely too wet for our liking.

Commercial Pier

As you can imagine, this very northern section of the California coastline is very similar to the Oregon coast but with fewer trees and driftwood. The redwood forests actually cross over very briefly into Oregon. The rocky coastline is really lovely and very sparsely populated. We are visiting more redwood forests in about a week or so when we are down in the Santa Cruz area and will provide a comparison.

Lovely view from the pier with Trinidad in the background