Find Your Park

I think this has been a blog title before, and possibly a FB post, and definitely a hash tag, but seriously: do it. Find. Your. Park. Do all the other things that you're already doing - call your senators, speak out against injustice,  run for office, educate our youth, protect your neighbors... but then, go find your park. National Parks represent the very best in both nature AND humanity. Nature did it's work hundreds of years ago, but people, PEOPLE, are the ones who woke up and saved those spaces, decided they were amazing and worth protecting. Governments, yes, but ordinary people like you and me too. Yes we had nothing to do with the natural creation of the wonders in National Parks, but there is something special about the human side too. Today we stood in a space where over a hundred years ago, people spoke up, and worked together to save this old growth forest.  Our government has had some weeks like this one, and (sigh), probably will again, but they've had some amazing weeks too. Just nice to remember.

Today we spent the morning in Tall Trees. We got a permit!!!! We weren't the first people knocking down the door of the visitor center, but we were second.  :)  I read somewhere that they only issue 50 or so permits a day, and that small number made for a magical experience. We saw people hiking, but we were never with people, just passing (or being passed, LOL).  It made for a very peaceful discovery of these tall trees.

Tall Trees is a grove of...tall trees!! Ha! It is an old growth forest that has some of the tallest trees in the forest.  The locations of the tallest trees are no longer released to the public, but back in the day, this was the location of the known tallest redwood. Most of the trees stand at least 320ft, with a few towering well above that. These giants are located at the bottom of a steep trail, that is lined with amazing redwoods. It isn't until you reach the bottom and are on the Tall Trees Trail that you realize the absolute girth of these giants. There is no way to really describe the size of these giants, and few of our photos really show the size. On the way out we acknowledged that our photos were not going to show what we really saw today. That's why the actual experience is so dang good!

These evening, we headed south to the Avenue of the Giants. This is a 31 mile drive through the Humboldt State Forest, which houses several separate groves, making for an impressive drive. There are several stops along the way, with interpretive signs and trails, and of course, we did a lot of hopping out of the car and checking things out. At one such stop we encountered this curious sound.

Earlier in Tall Trees while we were taking a break from the uphill hike, we were startled by a "snuffling" sound nearby and made quite a racket getting off that section of the trail. That experience fresh in our minds, we were a little cautious in exploring. Well, obviously not that cautious since we figured it out. Truth be told, one fearless traveler plunged in to the forest, and the other felt compelled to follow. The age old question: who is Thelma and who is Louise? :) Anyway, the interesting sound ended up being a fallen smaller tree rubbing up against one of the redwood giants. We could feel the vibrations in the trunk when we put our hands on it. Very cool.

Avenue of the Giants took longer than expected, and we again dined late, and returned home even later. But what a day.  :)