18.04.2012 – 18.04.2012  10 °C

V early start today as we knew that today was going to be a long driving day. From the moment we left Crater Lake to the moment we entered the digs for the night our car was reathed in fog and light misty rain! Aaah!

Leaving the mountains in Oregon was beautiful though, as the mountains were covered in wispy tendril like fog.. beautiful! Our plan for the day was to drive to the Redwood National Park, get there by lunch time and spend the arvo wandering around taking in the majesty of these huge trees… The plan was sound, the weather didn’t cooperate… By the time we had hit the border to California the temp was up a bit to about 10 deg but there was enough of a wind to make getting out of the car and into the rain, quite unpleasant!

Our trip through the Redwoods was still beautiful but I can only imagine how great it would have been to have spent an hour or two wandering some of the paths thru the Nat park. We stopped to have our lunch in a local diner inside the park and by the time we had finished the rain had not abated so we continued our drive thru the park knowing that any walking was really out of the question.

The Redwoods are pretty amazing trees. They are the tallest trees in the world as well as some of the oldest. Redwoods have been known to live for over two thousand years and can be up to 380 ft high (115m). Like many of the hardwood forests in the western world only a very small portion of these old growth trees still remain for us to see (most of which are found in the Nat Park). To stand under one of these trees is look up is pretty inspiring… If only they could talk imagine what sort of sites these trees have seen! (NB Redwoods are a type of Sequoia and are related to the Great Sequoias that exist in Sequoia Nat Park. The GS have wider bases, are shorter than Redwoods and live to over 3500 yrs!!)

Knowing that walking amongst the trees was going to be difficult, we decided to continue driving (rather than spend the night near the NP) on towards Lake Tahoe. We therefore turned east and drove back into the mountains and into the Big Foot and Gold Fever zones!

Again the rain came down as the landscape became more and more dramatic. Deep gorges (gorgeous gorges as M said), fir trees, craggy mountains! Perfect back country area, definitely home to the mighty ape/ man!! We finally got sick of driving just as dinner approached and pulled into this cute old gold mining town by the name of Weaverville. We hit the town and got talking to some of the yokels at the local pub.. We’re in Republican and NRA heartland, where the main topics of conversation are; weather, guns, guns, women and weather!!! J After a few drinks and some questionable tv and conversation we headed back to the digs for an early night after a very long day’s driving.. 330 miles or so! Off to continue the journey to Lake Tahoe tomorrow… we’ll see if we drive all the way thru or whether we get up late and stop early… we’ll wait and see!

Song of the Day– Bob Dylan, Rainy Day Women # 12 and 35