November 28-29, 2018 Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park to Cresent City , California

High 50's, cloudy and foggy.

The sun came out through the fog for a bit today as we drove into the redwoods. Nice light on the road. We hiked the Zigzag trails, west ridge trail and Prairie Creek trail loop today. 4 miles. The bridge going over Prairie Creek with mossy trees.  

John on the zigzag trail. It is called that for the switch backs, but this section was zig zaggy too. A redwood stump. I counted 150 years of rings on it. They can live to 2,000 years. Tiny ferns and mushrooms. 

We hiked up to the ridge above the valley and still were not anywhere near the tops of the redwoods. They are smaller higher up from the wind and less moisture. Some kind of fungus that look like chocolate syrup over vanilla ice cream, the green shamrocks are red on the back, in memory of  Carl and Sophie Rothschild and and all other victims of nazism and another painted in one, dedicated to all kind friends. Red fungus, green shamrocks on redwoods. 

The huge trees are in the bottomlands. This is a huge stump a tree rooted on top and all the roots coming down around the old stump.

Tiny mushrooms, red berries, big mushrooms and fall ferns. Big ferns, bracken ferns and tiny white mushroom.  

Looking back up at the ridge and fog in the trees. Mossy trees. 

 We drove back along the coastal road. It was almost dark and the fog was creeping up the cliffs.  Today was cloudy, foggy, rainy and windy. We started out going into Klamath which is on the Yurok indian reservation. We stopped at the casino. I lost $5 and gave up.

In Crescent City we stopped at both breweries. John at Sea Quake Brewery with his IPA and parmesan sweet potato fries and at Port O' Pints with his Red IPA. 

On the way back we saw this slit of a sunset happening so we stopped to watch. John taking photos. 

Looking north on the coast with tendrils of thick fog in the trees. The sunset progressed nicely. 

The sunset climaxed with this. Worth the stop to see. 

November 27, 2018 Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, California

High 50's, rainy and foggy. I come to this part of the country and think we've seen the redwoods so many times we can skip them. Then we go to them and I remember how awesome they are. They are HUGE. The atmosphere around these trees is incredible, kind of spiritual. We can't skip them ever.

We hiked in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. John on the trail with redwoods. Fall color on the trail. 

We started out on the Nature Trail at the visitors center. We went to do a short stroll and got sucked into the whole thing. John on the trail. Moss is on everything.  

We hiked  Brown Creek trail. We were going to do a much longer loop, but learned that there is a bridge out. So we went on the short hike and it was a good thing, we kept stopping to stare and take too many photos. What a beautiful place. We didn't get out until it was almost dark. We could have parked the car in this tree. John is in this second photo, but his camo jacket makes him invisible.  

John between two giants- hard to see with his camo jacket. It was so quiet in this valley. We didn't see anyone. The only sounds were this burbling creek, water dripping from the trees and our footsteps.  

John with more big trees. The redwood groves are named after people or in memory. There was no money to make this a park. Most of the redwoods were being cut down. They brought rich people to see the redwoods and had them purchase groves and donate them to the park. A newt on the trail.  

This first big tree is named after Gifford Pinchot, the first superintendent of the national park system. John disguised as a fern, a mushroom on a round tree knot, cauliflower looking fungus, and there are bears in the campground. A tree stump with bad hair. 

John on the trail with fog, moss, ferns and huge trees. The trees were so tall the tops were lost in the fog. Fog in the redwoods is magical. 

John with a really, really big tree. Big Tree??? There are thousands of big trees here. Redwood needles- 1/2 inch long. They are designed to precipitate water out of the fog, which is why they live in foggy places, a gnarly stump and which way do we go here? 

November 25-26, 2018 Brookings, Oregon to Klamath, California

50's and mostly cloudy today with no wind. 

We hiked from camp to the Harris Butte that overlooks the ocean.  Some greenery along the trail.

The view from the top and John heading back down Harris Butte.

Moss on the trees, orange fungus in the campground, thick ferns, an octopus washed up on the beach and rock reflections. Then we hiked the trail to the beach. John picking his way through the rocks across a small steam. 

We had to climb the logs to walk the beach. These huge logs are really dangerous when they are in the high tide rolling around.  The sun tried to come out a bit. 

 A couple of canada geese taking off in the surf. I scored this cute bedspread today. Makes the bus more homey, or cabin like. 

The bus at Kamp Klamath in Klamath, California. The campground is into the Redwood National forest in the deep dark damp woods. There are tree frogs going outside.  On the way here we went on some very steep grades and very windy roads. We are in the middle of the boonies here. Trees of Mystery. A redwood roadside attraction with a chair lift in the canopy of the redwoods and a museum. Also a display of Paul Bunyan's life done in chain saw art and a life sized Paul Bunyan and Babe the big blue ox. I rode the chair lift and want through the museums years ago. John stayed in the bus, he thought it was too cheesy. I liked it. Bigfoot crossing and the kid that lives here at the RV park caught this salamander and was showing it to everyone. He looked it up and it is a red backed salamander. 

November 23-24, 2018 Brookings, Oregon

It started out with dense fog, rain and wind today. We drove up to Gold Beach.

John at Arch Rock Brewery in Gold Beach, Oregon with his IPA. Very tiny tasting room, about 10 x 10 feet. So he tasted there and then we went to Hunter Creek Bar and Grill for lunch and they have Arch Rock on tap. We also went to meet Linda and her husband Fred. Linda is my partner in the Art of Pine Needle coiling facebook page ornament exchange. Usually we mail these but since we were so close we med. We exchanged our ornaments and visited most of the afternoon. We decided we needed a photo with the most memorable thing in the restaurant, the Kisses Urinal in the men's room! We know how to have fun. 

Linda brought these beautiful pine needle baskets that she made for show and tell and gave me these two ornaments. We ate lunch and visited most of the afternoon. Was great to meet Linda and her husband Fred. On the way back we drove by Pistol River Beach. We have driven by a bunch of times and never stopped. Today we stopped.  

It was close to low tide so we could walk among these sea stacks. It was stunning.  

Some of the sea stacks had red rocks embedded in them, this one also has green algae and white barnacles. We also saw lots of colorful sea stars and anemones.The last one is a rose in reflected sunset. Sunset, tide pools and huge waves.  

Sunset coming through this keyhole in a sea stack. Wild rocks and seagulls in sunset.  

Sunset between sea stacks. Long anemones hanging below a rock and lots of mussels, sea stars and anemones. Sea stars eat mussels. They clamp on with their sucker arms and pull the shell open and eat them. 

John in the sunset among sea stacks.  

At the end of the sunset I thought my glasses were fogging up, but no it was fog rolling in. I finished this basket. It is for Cat's in trade for the cool hat she crocheted for me. 

John at the Chetco Brewery with his IPA. We had dinner there of hummus and peanuts and beer. Sunset from Chetco Brewery. 

We went to Azalea state park for the Nature's Coastal Holiday show advertised with over 500,000 light and 89 2D and 3D sculptures. John on one of the walkways. All you could see were the lights so it was disorienting where to walk and children were walking into people. It was a lovely overload of lights and color.  There were also complementary xmas cookies and hot chocolate. A shark, hillside display and an octopus were among the many things. 

My personal angel John and a jellyfish. That is two different  things, John is not my jellyfish! We had our pictures taken with Princes Elsa. Almost as good as with Santa.