Day 5 - Sep 4, 2007 Last updated: 9/9/07 5:30pm PT
Today we are driving around the redwoods of northern California. First stop was at the “Big Tree” in the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. It’s big, but not as big as we would see later in the day. This tree is located just off the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway, which is a nice drive off 101. We also saw some elk on the side of the road.
We drove south on 101 to the Redwood National Park around Orick, CA. We drove into the Lady Bird Johnson Grove. There is a one mile hike in this area dedicated in 1968. This was not that impressive. Sure the trees are bigger here than in my back yard, but I was expecting bigger.
Driving back north, through Crescent City, we start heading east on Highway 199 (which is a nice drive through the Siskiyou Mountains to get to I-5). We stopped at the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park and pulled into the campground and asked the park ranger if there were any good hikes around. He sent us to the other end of the campground to park. We crossed a river and hiked into Stout Grove. This is what I was looking for. The trees are huge here. There’s no way I can capture them on vilm (virtual film ™). Now that tree Denise is in front of is a Big Tree.
A few years back, we were in Big Basin on our trip in Monterey. I remember really enjoying that walk as much as I enjoyed walking through Stout Grove. You really have to think about your insignificance when you stand next to a tree that is 1000-1500 years old. This is a must see destination.
Tonight’s stop is in Springfield/Eugene, OR. We stayed at the Comfort Suites in Springfield. Their ads claim to have the best beds and bedding in their class of hotel. I think it’s true. This was the nicest bed we’ve had all trip. Dinner was at Sophia’s across the street from the hotel. I found it on yelp.com; I had randomly typed in “german” for food type, and this place was across from our hotel. Had the schnitzel. It needed more spice/flavor in the breading. But the German potato salad was good.
Desert was an interesting story. The choices at the restaurant didn’t look that good, so we decided on finding an ice cream place. Back at the hotel, I looked through the phone book and found a local ice cream place called Prince Pücklers (I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know how that is pronounced). Having never been to Eugene (oh yeah, Eugene is a college town – home of the University of Oregon), we didn’t know where the place was exactly, so we brought the map in the phone book with us. (Sure I could have Googled it, but what fun would that be?) We got close to the place and I saw some plump college girls walking down the street, so I said to Denise that we should ask those girls because they look like they would know where a good ice cream place is. She hit me, I had used the word “fat” not plump, I can be very direct sometimes, we didn’t ask for directions. So we made a few wrong turns, and about 10 minutes later, finally ended up back to near where we saw the girls. We turned the other way this time and found the ice cream place. We get out of the car, walk to the store, and look, there are the fat girls eating their ice cream. I gave Denise one of those – I told you so – looks. She couldn’t help but laugh at that point. The ice cream was very good.