Redwoods Vacation

So... Finally new stuff worthy of talking about! Our friends Ball, and Kaygan flew up from Mississippi to visit us for a week. It was a great time and a much needed holiday for everyone involved. We picked them up from PDX and just went home cause their flight was delayed and they didn't arrive till 2am. Friday morning we all woke up and milled around for a minute and then went on a little tour of Portland making sure to not travel too far between brewpubs. We also made the obligitory stop to REI for browsing and dreaming, and some food. Later we went back home and rested up for the coming week. Saturday morning we took off for Mt. Hood (left) and drove up the backside to Cloud Cap for some cool pictures and even better views. It was a clear day and we could see Mt. Hood, St. Helens, Baker and Adams- four volcanoes. It's pretty crazy knowing what volcanoes can do and being able to see four of them at the same time.


Pictured here are Baker (left) and Adams.









<--View from the Bluff Sunday we got up and headed south to start the trip. We went through Eugene and ate lunch at Ball's old stompin grounds. We even went into town to get more supplies, got em and went up to Skinners Butte to check it out. Good supplies... Next, because the day was getting late,we decided to skip the idea of driving through Crater Lake cause it would have put us getting a campsite at midnight. We wanted to see it, but because it was late we drove on down to Valley of the Rouge and camped for the night. The site was cool, no one was around us. After dinner Ball and I charged up the glow-in-the-dark frisbee with the truck headlights and played night frisbee. This is easier than it sounds. The girls played with the camera until we started checking out the stars, which were bright and numerous. Through a fluke Amy snapped a crazy picture that started us on a frienzied pic taking escapade:

Monday we woke up and drove down to northern California to the Redwoods parks and found a camp at Gold Bluff Beach. The weather looked like rain, so we set up our tents and a tarp in conjunction with a log wall made to block wind. We had two walls and a roof and not 5 minutes after we got it set up the rain came.

The rain lifted after 10 min. and we were just in time to see the sun go down over the Pacific. In the morning we got up to a beautiful day. The rain was gone and it was a good bit warmer. We packed our things up after spending some time on the beach, and headed down further in the park to a trailhead that would take us to a campsite that was an old logging camp called Camp 44.

This hike was short but semi-strenuous mainly due to the fact that we were packing in two bundles of firewood and 25 microbrews. Well... about 19 micros and a few of Kaygans Bud Lights... the site was small and there was virtually no view but there were huge stumps where the old trees had been logged and they were pretty trippy. There were also plenty of huge ferns that looked really crazy in the firelight.

The next day the hike was MUCH easier cause we had all shed about 10 pounds off our backs. We hiked it on back to the car and set out to find Bald Knob in southern Oregon. Bald Knob is a fire lookout on the top of a hill (obviously) and the view is amazing. The directions that I got from Mapquest were wrong at best, but I got a packet that explained how to get there from the north. We were coming from the south so it took a little guesswork and arguing but we found it. It was really remote and we drove for miles on dirt roads. We even saw a black bear running down the road at one point. We got there at dark and Ball whooped up one of his famous steak dinners. I crashed out and had to be woken up for dinner but it was worth it. We all fell asleep shortly afterwards and slept till 8ish. When I awoke ( to the chants of 'get your ass up') the view was incredible in all directions. Unfourtunately, we had to get on the road quickly to make it back to Portland before too long.

Good times, good friends...

And we'll be sober tomorrow.