Today we headed north to Crescent City, CA and the northern section of the Redwood National Park.  On the way we stopped at the tourist trap with Paul Bunyan I mentioned the other day.  It’s called Trees of Mystery, and they have a trail trough the redwoods and a gondola ride through the trees to an overlook.  We did it, at it was really worthwhile.  I was surprised.

The campground in Crescent City is somewhat run down, but we have a site right on the beach, so it’s worth it.  After setting up it was time to visit some more trees.  Every site has amazing trees, every tree is different and awe inspiring.  Every time we think we’ve seen the largest tree another huge tree comes into view.  We walked some trails and drove a couple of one lane dirt roads through the forest.  There are plenty of pull offs so we never had to back up to let oncoming cars pass, but it was close a couple of times.

We came back to town for dinner, ate at the Chart House which is located along the water on a causeway to a little island.  The setting was better than the chowder, but fresh fish is always good.  The restaurant sat us at a table with some other men from Santa Rosa in town for work and with whom we had a nice conversation.  After dinner was the obligatory pilgrimage to WalMart.  On the way back we drove along the shore and happily ended at an overlook at about sunset.  Tonight is the last night in California, tomorrow we will be a bit north of Coos Bay in Oregon in a state park campground for two nights.

 Fog rolling in over Rt 101 from the ocean

 Elk in a field along Rt 101

 Ocean view from the observation platform at the top of the gondola at Trees of Mystery

 Going up the gondola ride at Trees of Mystery

 Giant Squirrel - one of the carvings illustrating the Paul Bunyan story walk

 View of Crescent City bay from the camper

 ditto - lighthouse in the background

 Huge tree with many burls or tiny truck?

 Huge tree with many burls or tiny guy?

Some windfalls are larger than others

This might be the biggest single tree we've seen

One lane road through the trees

The lighthouse

Sunset over the northern Pacific coast at Crescent City