Vacation: Part 13: Big Tree: 03/05/07
Over the Presidents' Day weekend we took our first vacation as a family of four. I've been posting photo montages of each place we stopped on my livejournal site but I plan to post a more in depth description of what we did here, one stop per day.
I drove us back to the hotel in Eureka. I stopped once in the parking lot of the "Trees of Mystery" (home of a Paul Bunyun and Babe statue) to adjust the front seat. The pedals just weren't where I was expecting them and that was making me nervous on these winding roads.
Ian woke up from his nap just in time to request the scenic route through the forest. I had been planning to take it anyway as it has been years since the last time I was on it. I can still remember trying to trace our route on a page of paper as I watched the road fall behind us from the RV window. I think I still have that wiggly path. Maybe I should scan it and post it.
Just as we were nearing the end of scenic route (which happens to end near where the elk viewing is) I saw the one thing I had hoped to show Sean: Big Tree. Big Tree was the one thing that really sold Sean on this trip. I described it to him from my 1991 trip with my family but since I wasn't driving I wasn't really sure where it was.
I actually squeed in the car when I saw the sign. I told Ian we should wake up the kids because we had found the whole point to our trip. So we parked, woke up Sean and Harriet and took the short trail into the forest to see Big Tree. Before we even got into the forest we could see Big Tree towering above the other redwoods.
It was wonderful to see Sean's excitement at seeing Big Tree and remembering my own. We tried taking some of the little hikes around the area but the loop was closed from some recently fallen trees so we had to turn around at the 3/4 point.
We stayed probably half an hour. I took some lovely photographs as did Sean. I think we took more photographs at Big Tree then we did anywhere else on our trip.
big tree | redwoods | map | photography | vacation
