Tuesday, June 20th: The Redwoods

We started the morning meeting these lovely people who had pulled into the campsite across from us the night before. Victor came over to ask Tim about our camper and gave a bag of cherries to the kids. Mila and Victor were from Ukraine originally but had immigrated 20 years ago to Sacramento. Through conversation we learned that they were also Christians and the draw to them was immediate. They were in their 70’s and they took an interest in our numerous children and spoke longingly of their grandchildren in TX and NC, and their son who was a pastor back in Ukraine. They were very interested in all our travels and shared their plans in their broken English. We spent a good portion of our morning visiting with them. Mila especially enjoyed talking to the older kids and Abbey said she talked a little about how terrible the war was and how worried she was about her son over there.

We headed to the portion of the Redwoods we wanted to see that day and really enjoyed the amazing trees. Even though we were staying in the Jedidiah Smith portion of the park (there are several sections to the Redwoods) we were told that Prairie Creek

entrance further south had the oldest and biggest trees. So we drove 40 minutes south and enjoyed the Prairie creek trail. The goal was to reach the Corkscrew tree but several

of the whinier children decided they wanted to head back early bc they were tired and hungry and we had only gone half way. I went back with the teenagers (eyeroll) and the 2 little girls who slow us down to get lunch with them, and Tim went on with the more adventurous Elias and Malachi to the tree.

Sadly, the next section of the the trip, Fern Canyon, which I had read we shouldn’t miss, now required a day permit - free, but we were supposed to acquire it the day BEFORE we wanted to go in. New this year. Yay. Again hunting for a plan B as we huddled around the only available Wi-fi at the ticket booth (the visitor’s centers were all closed for ranger training that day, making it hard to gather any info), we headed back up to our campground and hiked a short trail to an old WWII radar station - the last one intact left on the West coast. There wasn’t much left to see but it was neat to see the old sight that was specifically designed to appear as an innocent coastal farm but was equipped during the war with radar, radio and a few machine guns to protect our coastline during the war after Pearl Harbor.

We went back for s’mores and a fire and I wanted to invite Mila and Victor over to join us but I had a cold that kept me from feeling too social. Tomorrow Oregon!