Redwoods Vacation

We have been so excited for our trip to the Redwoods. It has been a long time since we took a big family trip together (for a lot of reasons, including COVID-19). The kids have talked about wanting to the see the tallest trees in the world. We decided that we wanted to invite my parents to come with us since we have not been able to spend much time with them over the last year. 

We had an amazing trip and loved all the things we were able to see and just the time we spent together and with the kids. Without further ado - here is our vacation:

Day 1 Monday: We got up and left early Monday morning. One of my favorite parts of trips is actually just riding in the car together. We drove our van with my parents in their new car caravaning with us. It was nice because the kids could take turns riding with Grandma and Grandpa which broke up the long time drive. One of our favorite things from the drive was searching for license plates. We downloaded an app to help track all of the different state license plates we saw. Lydia joined with us in trying to look at all the license plates we could see as we passed by other cars. We had plenty of snacks and tried to stop every few hours for bathroom breaks for the kids/eating. One of my favorite meals this time was 7 layer dip. Shantel made us all our own mini 7 layer dips and then we ate that with chips and it was so perfect for a delicious meal, but good for traveling. We planned to drive about an hour past Reno to a town called Susanville on day 1. We stopped near Reno and passed out dinner and did a few other things. My parents got back on the road and we just wanted to stop at the dollar store and grab a couple things for the kids. We did that and got back on the freeway and after a few minutes the whole freeway came to a dead stop. There was an accident not more than 1/2 mile ahead of us that was blocking the whole road. We let the kids unstrap and we sat there for more than an hour without moving. We were really trying to get to Susanville before dark and it would have been easy to feel frustrated about being stuck for so long, but the only thing we felt was gratitude and concern for the people who were injured. We were grateful my parents were safe and were able to get to Susanville much earlier. We were grateful we were safe. We ended up getting to Susanville pretty late and got the kids in the hotel and all went right to sleep. 

Monday lunch stop at a park. 

Lydia reading (of course) and Shantel and I enjoying our 7 layer dip. 

Day 2 Tuesday: This was supposed to be a shorter driving day, but as you can see from the picture below, we ended up stuck multiple times for construction projects and one lane roads. We were worried about some of the California fires and if routes would be closed, but it was actually just construction that caused the most trouble. Once we got near our rental cabin we drove down to Humbolt Redwoods State Park. It was the perfect way to start the trip. It was a beautiful old growth forest and we found a short hiking trail. It was also nice because there were lots of tipped over trees that the kids could run along (and also see how thick the trunk was). Also, just a quick note on the weather. We had perfect weather for basically the whole trip. It was relatively warm and did not rain at all until the day we were leaving (Saturday). 

After seeing some trees, we headed to our cabin. It turned out to be absolutely perfect. It was up a little tiny road and very secluded. It was completely surrounded by trees. The forest included young growth redwoods (25-100 years old) and so it was so cool to tell the kids we were staying in a redwood forest and to go out and look closely at them. The cabin was also great, it had a room for Shantel and I and then one for my parents. We put Lucy in with us and then the older three kids slept up in the loft. (It was slightly scary with the steep stairs up, but the kids did great being safe). We were just a few minutes north of Arcadia, so on the southern side of Redwood National and State Parks. 

Day 3 Wednesday: My parents slept in and we got up early to go get food at the grocery store. It was also Shantel's birthday (Happy Birthday my love!) so we stopped to get donuts for her celebration. The kids were super excited and so we opened presents once we got back from the store. Before we headed home we stopped at a park in the city that had some redwood trees and it was so much fun. We played freeze tag with the kids and just really enjoyed being with them. Plus we captured my favorite photo of the whole trip. Redwoods will often group in a circle around a dead redwood tree, so we captured this below as we stood in the middle of them. 

We did lunch and then went out for a big hike for the day. We went to "Big Tree Wayside" area near the Prairie Creek Visitor center. We stopped at the visitor center and then went on a hike. This was my favorite hike of the whole trip. It was such a beautiful area and was just full of massive old growth redwood trees. Everywhere we looked we would point to another huge tree. It was majestic and so peaceful and it was not busy there at all. 

Shantel is awesome, so she brought some string so that we could wrap it around the base of the trees and then later we could measure to see what the circumference of the base was. Each of us got to pick and name a tree and measure it. The names were:

Shantel - "The Great One"

Lydia - "Sky Tall"

Austin - "Sky High Long Time"

Caleb - "Tree Life"

Okay- maybe these two are my favorite photos from the trip! 

Another favorite. Shantel was getting the van an I was waiting with the kids. Caleb was just so happy playing in the dirt and it reminded me what an amazing stage of life he is in and I loved seeing his imagination go to work. 

Quick stop at the beach in preparation for the next day. 

Day 4 Thursday: In the morning the kids were out exploring and found two banana slugs. The redwood forests are famous for banana slugs and I was so glad the kids found them. They were so excited, they'd been reading lots of books about the redwoods for a few weeks before the trip and the books had all talked about Banana Slugs. They were fun to watch. 

Caleb playing in the sand at the beach and the kids flying kites with Shantel. 

We ended up driving almost all the way up to Crescent City to find a good beach. Most of the beaches near us were beautiful, but not great for kids. Crescent beach had a super small slope, which made it really good for running in the waves with the kids. 

Caleb must have spent more than an hour drawing massive body sized lines all over the sand. It was so cute and he was so happy. 

After the beach we went to Crescent City and got ice cream cones that my parents were so kind to buy. 

Day 5 Friday: The kids really wanted to go see a drive through tree, so we took our van which barely made it through the Tour Thru Tree near in Klamath. 

Up next was the "Trees of Mystery." This is private property where they have built rope bridges up in the trees and then also have a gondola that takes you to the top of the mountain. It was really cool to see the different perspective and be up in the trees. The gondola ride was really fun and gave such great views. 

Austin standing on the boot of a giant Paul Bunyan statue. 

We finished the day (and our trip) by heading over to a forest in the north end of the park near the Jedediah Smith visitor center. The trail was near Walker Road. It was an old growth forest, but it was actually quite different from the Big Tree Wayside area. It had more dying trees and was interesting to see. 

That night my dad and I sat around and tried to figure out the best way home. The rout we had come in was not great and the other options had indicated long closures (up to a few hours) as well. We finally decided we would go south so we could just get to I-80. It would take a long time, but have more freeway time than the trip out. 

Day 6 Saturday: One of the fun things from the cabin was this hot tub that was right outside the cabin (but up off a path and surrounded by trees). It was so much fun. Shantel and I took the kids out there on Thursday morning and they loved it. Then Thursday night after the kids were in bed Shantel and I went out and relaxed in the hot tub as well. The kids really wanted to do it again, so Shantel woke up early on Saturday morning and took them out while I packed. The kids were so happy. 

It was super rainy as we left on Saturday morning. We decided to drive down south using the Avenue of teh Giants Scenic Byway and it was so beautiful and nice. The drive was quite long to get back to Reno. In addition, we had a very unfortunate thing happen. I was driving my parents car so they could get some rest and it was super rainy. All the sudden I saw a massive amount of rocks coming down on top of their car. There was not really any time to react because they were just coming down on top of us. It was a rockslide. Fortunately the windshield did not break, but they had chips and scratches all over their new car and the windshield had a ton of cracks. There was nothing that I could do, but I still felt bad, especially because if I get to that part of the road 3 seconds sooner or later, we miss it completely. My parents were such a good example though and they were not upset or bothered at all, even though it was a brand new car. I appreciated their example. Were were able to keep driving and that was really fortunate. I feel like we were really well protected from Heavenly Father on our trip.  

Day 7 Sunday: Here we are at our hotel in Reno. We got in the car and headed home pretty early. 

We had a good drive home (my parents stayed in Reno an extra day to visit my Uncle Brian). The kids did amazing in the car and really did awesome the whole trip. We loved the whole trip and had fun exploring and spending time together. As we were driving home the kids already wanted to know when we would be coming back.