The Ben Vacation 2015 – Crater Lake

Crater Lake

Ben & Crater Lake

I keep referring to our former vacation 7 year ago as write these posts (hopefully you’re not sick of it), but that trip back in 2008 is the genesis of this trip—it colors much of the things we’ve done so far.  I have also mentioned that Ben chose our destinations for this vacation.  Of all the places we’ve visited over the years, Crater Lake is Ben’s favorite.  Consequently, many of the places we have visited this year were dictated by his true desire to see Crater Lake again.  I guess if Carlsbad Caverns or Arches National Monument had been Ben’s favorite place, we would have traveled there and memories of our 2007 or 2006 vacations would be seeping into my memory banks.  One way or another, I’d be reliving memories of one of our previous vacations.  Actually, as I think about it, the 2008 vacation was the one that almost didn’t happen.

Originally, the plan had been to pair up with the Grahams.  We'd flirted with the idea of going together on vacation in 2007, but we actually were moving forward with plans for 2008.  By that time, my parents were serving their first mission.  Making a pilgrimage to Wyoming wasn’t something I was considering that year (no sense in driving to Cokeville just to say “hi” to the house J), so going together made sense.  As I recall, we had a little over a week time frame to work with and I started thinking about Northern California because it fit within those time parameters.  Plus, there were places in that direction that I’d never seen before (or had been too young to remember seeing).  I recall asking the Grahams if they had ever been to Sequoia National Park.  At the time, I don’t think they had.  We had visited the park and enjoyed our 3 day visit.  Using Sequoia as my springboard, I began searching for other places neither family had visited.  Mount Lassen was chosen because the information I read explained that the area had some similar qualities to Yellowstone—paint pots and minor geysers; not a lot of them, but enough to give the Grahams (who had never been to Yellowstone) the “flavor.”  I had always wanted to see the Redwoods, so that was a no-brainer as far as I was concerned.  As I recall, those were the main places I chose and everyone was in agreement.  I believe I had made a couple of reservations and was starting to put the logistics together when the Grahams had a unexpected expense rise up and bite them and then some other situation came up which unfortunately forced them to pull out of the vacation plans. L  By this time, however, the idea had captured my imagination.  As I reluctantly cancelled their reservations, I also realized I could expand the vacation a bit since I had already taken two weeks off from work.  With this in mind, I began to look for an extra destination, within range of those already chosen, that might be fun to visit; that’s when Crater Lake appeared on my radar.

Wizard Island

I was adding LDS temples along our route to the itinerary when I came across the Medford Oregon Temple.  I didn’t know a temple was located in Medford, but wouldn't you know it, not only was there a temple in Medford, but a national park called Crater Lake wasn't too far away either!  I remember telling Jennifer that I wanted to add it to the itinerary because it seemed like a fascinating place.  Traveling into Oregon would work because it wouldn’t add a huge amount of travel time to the trip.  Medford would serve to fill a gap between our time at Lassen and Crescent City—plus I found a great deal at the local Ramada Inn.  With this last piece of the puzzle, I solidified our final reservations and the vacation was set.  But as July of that year approached and gas prices started soaring toward $5.00 a gallon (I recall the worst fill-up was in the neighborhood of $4.78 somewhere between Redding and Mount Shasta L) and the economy was imploding over the popping housing bubble.  Suddenly, it appeared that it might be better to scrap the whole idea.  Jennifer’s parents had suggested a “local” vacation to save money and I did think about it.  But the more I considered it and prayed about it, the stronger my desire became to execute the plan I’d already made.  The reservations were set, logistics considered and the money (for the most part; the volatile gas prices made it difficult to nail down an exact amount) had been allocated.  As we talked about the plan again one night, Jennifer and I came to the conclusion that we didn’t know when we’d have the opportunity to go on another big vacation (the answer: 5 years) and we might not have another chance to do the things I had planned.  Our final conclusion: why not just go, have fun and make memories?  Based on the memories that keep flooding back to me as we make new memories on this trip, I’m glad we decided to go on that vacation 7 years ago. J

Llao Rock

A view from the east side

So with this “origin story” as a backdrop, this morning we broke camp and drove to Crater Lake.  I've already shown a couple of pictures above, but, honestly, I'm not sure if pictures truly do the lake justice.  It's one thing to see the amazing blue of the water and to wonder at the fact that this lake is found in the caldera of a volcano, but actually seeing one of God's beautiful creations in person surpasses any picture by a hundredfold. J How the lake came to be is interesting in itself.  The theory is that the volcano that once loomed over this area (now called Mount Mazama) had a cataclysmic eruption that blew off the entire top half of the mountain.  Over the next few hundred years, smaller eruptions allowed lava to cover and seal the bottom of the caldera (two cinder cones developed within the caldera during these additional eruptions; one rises above the water and is called Wizard Island, the other is completely covered by the water).  This lava seal has allowed rain and snow run-off to collect and remain within the former volcano.  The vivid color comes because the lake receives its water from the rain and snow melt instead of from streams or river feeders.  The absence of major amounts of sediment clouding the water allows it to reflect the deep blue color back to our eyes and senses.

Pumice Castle

That's the scientific explanation for the lake.  While the “mechanics” of what took place is fascinating, I am reminded that the prophet Alma in the Book of Mormon testified that “all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it” (Alma 30:44).  One of the reasons I have enjoyed taking my family on trips to places like Crater Lake is because of the reaffirmation these have given me of the fact that this world wasn’t created by happenstance.  No coincidental cosmic concocting took place to spin the sun and the solar system into being.  Instead, creation commenced with the great care and calculation as unorganized matter was brought together under the authority and power of the priesthood to create an earth whereon we might dwell.  As a reminder of the planning that took place in creating our mortal habitation, places like Crater Lake were formed that we “might have joy” (2 Nephi 2:25) during our sojourn here.  One of the information signs we read at one of our stops stated that the local Native American tribes considered the lake to be a sacred place.  In the scriptures when God does not have a temple to come to, He visits His people in high places; usually mountain tops.  I think this place would definitely qualify.

Phantom Ship

About a third of the way around the lake, we wanted to stop and eat lunch.  Jen and I looked for picnic places, but every time we spotted them they were either occupied or appeared too quickly to notice until it was too late.  Finally, we stopped at a turn-out with a thick rock wall about 4 feet high and I decided to stop there.  We made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and passed out bags of chips and snacks (I shared a vegetable package of broccoli, cauliflower and baby carrots I’d purchased in Crescent City with Jen) and sat on the wall.  The terrain sloped downward fairly quickly and our vantage point gave us a nice view of the lake.  It was nice to talk and look out at the water and soak in the ambience of the area.  One of the things I tried to do was find turn-out areas that we had not utilized 7 years ago to try and give us some different perspectives of the lake and this spot definitely qualified. J  After about 30 minutes or so, we cleaned up our trash and continued on our way toward the turn-out near the trail down to the boat docks.

Vidae Falls

One of the things we wanted to do during our first visit to the lake was to go on the boat ride.  A landing has been built on the far west side of the lake and boat excursions leave the dock every 30 minutes to take visitors on about a 2 hour tour of the lake.  Unfortunately, I didn’t realize the popularity of these trips and decided to come to the boat ride area in the course of our trip around the lake instead of heading to the dock trail immediately.  By the time we arrived, no more trips were available; all of the rides had been sold out.  This year, I researched the ride again, determining that I would go to the docks directly and then we could slowly make our way around the lake after the boat had returned us to shore.  Two problems immediately faced me as I reviewed the website for the boat tour, 1) the cost per person for the boat tour was $40—a grand total of $160 for the four of us—a bit rich for my blood; especially when I’m trying to keep costs down; and 2) in order to reach the boat docks, the trail we would have to descend and ascend is described as being the equivalent of 70 flights of stairs; with an average staircase having 12 stairs, this would mean Ben (as well as us, but worse for him) would be required to essentially walk down and up 840 stairs. L  As soon as I figured out those numbers, we nixed the whole idea.  As we traveled around the perimeter of the lake, Ben took some pictures of the boats as they traveled over the water.  That will have to do. J

Too Cool

Jen & Ben

We stopped at the picture area for the Phantom Ship and stopped at another turn-out that gave us a view of Pumice Castle.  From there, the road drops away from the lip of the caldera as it heads back toward the visitor’s center.  The last place we stopped was at the Vidae Falls before returning to the lodge.  Returning the the lookout area where we had begun our day, we took a few more pictures and prepared to move on to our next destination: Burns, Oregon.  I nearly made a huge mistake in my planning at this juncture.  My mantra is: always move things forward.  But in my planning, I think I warped back to 2008 and planned to return to Medford after visiting Crater Lake.  The idea worked in 2008 because our next destination at that time was Crescent City, but this time we needed to travel east from Crater Lake; not backtrack.  Two weeks from the time we’re were to leave, I felt prompted to “walk” through all my travel plans and found out that by returning to Medford our next day’s travel would be 14 hours to reach West Yellowstone.  Desperate to remedy my poor planning, I started looking for another place to stay.  The nearest KOAs were located in Bend, Oregon (not far enough along) or Boise, Idaho (too far to travel after leaving Crater Lake).  Burns became a “happy medium” between these two destinations and, after some internet searching; I found a reasonably priced hotel (The Horseshoe Inn) as our place to stay tonight.  As a small reminder of home, we actually connected with highway 395 about 15 miles or so outside of Burns.  The 395 travels through our area and we drive on this road every day.  I knew it wends north all the way to Canada, but it was nice to have a small connection to home.  We arrived at the Inn a few minutes before 10 p.m.  After several days of tents and air mattresses, a room and two queen sized beds were a welcome change of pace. J

The Ben Vacation 2015 – Mellowing Out in Medford

Banana Slug

"I see dead people crossing the street
all the time!"

Having seen and accomplished everything we wanted to do in the Redwoods and Crescent City yesterday, we decided to sleep in this morning and take our time breaking camp and moving on to our next destination: Medford, Oregon.  Since Medford is only a two hour drive (or so) from Crescent City and our trip to Crater Lake was scheduled for tomorrow, today was basically a mellow, take it easy type of day. J  Before we left, however, Ben and Isaac found a banana slug.  We had found a few slugs during our last visit to the area, but up to this point had found none during this trip.  As we were loading up the car, a banana slug was found!  Funny, it's coloring made it look more like an unripe banana.  The drive to Medford was nice; lots of trees and mountain scenery.  It’s interesting how driving in the opposite direction to Medford caused the scenery to seem new—a different perspective can put a new twist on just about anything I guess. J  One odd thing I noticed, however, was the occasional “congestion” sign we saw after we entered Oregon.  As we drove through the little towns of O’Brien, Cave Junction and Selma a yellow, diamond warning sign with the word “congestion” in bold, black letters would appear, but their place seemed ... well, out of place.  If they were erected to warn people of traffic congestion, then they were pretty useless because they would appear in places where there was no traffic congestion at all!  We started wondering if the road workers in Oregon had the abilities of Haley Joel Osment’s character in The Sixth Sense and they could see hundreds of ghosts filling up the roadways in those areas.  Our other theory was that those specific places had been areas where people had become congested and the road workers wanted to warn travelers to be ready to grab tissues or take a Flonase pill. J

We arrived in at the Medford KOA a little after 1 p.m., the earliest we’ve ever arrived at a campsite.  I almost wondered if we’d be turned away, “Oh, I’m sorry, sir.  We haven’t had a chance to spruce up your campsite and turn down your grass.  You’ll have to come back in an hour or two,” but the lady at the desk checked me in and assigned us our campsite as soon as I walked in with my reservation paper. J  After we finished with the tent, we didn’t quite know what to do with ourselves until Jennifer mentioned the need we had to do some laundry.  A pool table was inside the laundry room/game room/store.  While we waited for our clothing to wash and dry, Ben and Isaac asked if we could play pool.  I was the only one with any experience, which made for an interesting couple of games.  We muddled through, but had fun.  Afterward, I went back to the tent to try to find the slow leak in Isaac’s air mattress.  Beginning at Crescent City, he had started to find himself practically flat on the ground by morning.  I pumped his bed full of air and searched everywhere to no avail.  No matter what I tried, the leak avoided detection.  Obviously, the air was escaping from somewhere because the mattress was nearly flat each morning, but I could not figure out how the air was escaping.  Laundry completed, it was finally time leave the campsite.  I apologized to Isaac for not being able to fix his mattress as we prepared to take a drive to the Medford Temple.

During our last visit to Medford, we went to church and then took pictures in front of the gate of the temple (temples are closed on Sunday in favor of regular worship meetings, however, temple grounds with Visitor’s Centers—like Los Angeles, Mesa, St. George, Salt Lake City, to name several—are open on Sundays to allow people to come to the centers).  Today, we were able to walk on to the grounds and touch the temple.  As we were near the front doors taking some pictures, a sister peeked outside and came out to talk to us.  She told us if we needed a drink of water or use the bathroom we were welcome to come use the facilities in the foyer.  We told her why we were there and thanked her for the offer.  I was reminded of the time we visited the Columbus, Ohio Temple two years ago.  Our stop at the temple site was on a Monday (temples are closed on Monday as well), but the gates were open so we walked around the grounds and took pictures.  We decided to take our “touching the temple” pictures near the front door and as we prepared to do so, the doors opened and the temple president peeked outside and asked what we were doing.  When we explained our temple “scavenger hunt” to him, he seemed genuinely pleased by our visit.  He told us the temple was being cleaned that morning and said we could come into the foyer to get a drink or use the bathroom if we needed.  We thanked him and he smiled and closed the door.  We finished taking pictures and continued on our way to Pittsburg and finally to New Jersey that evening if memory serves.

Finished with our temple visit, it was time to think about eating (always a pleasant thing to consider J).  For this evening’s meal, I had again turned to a memory from our previous visit to Medford when we ate dinner at a restaurant called Elmer’s (Isaac has been calling it Elmer Fudd’s—“Be very, very quiet; I’m hunting wabbits!”).  I’m not sure why we chose to eat there 7 years ago.  It may have been as simple as we had returned from Crater Lake, were looking for a place to eat, stumbled upon the restaurant and decided it was as good a place as any since we were hungry and tired and didn’t want fast food.  Whatever the case was, the choice turned out to be a great one as the food was very tasty.  What made the stop even better was the amazing strawberry lemonade!  I consisted of very good lemonade (much better than what comes out of the spigot at a fast food place) with thick pieces of strawberries floating in the drink.  I loved it—raved about it.  Since then, Elmer’s strawberry lemonade has served as a standard for me when it comes to these types of drinks and nothing has been able to top it.  In my preliminary planning, I was reminded of the Elmer’s in Medford and made sure our day’s plans included dinner there.  While our campfire dinners over the last three days have worked out pretty well, I think we were all happy to have someone else prepare and serve our dinner. J

Thankfully, the food was as good today as the memory from 7 years ago.  The boys had hamburgers, Jennifer ordered a chicken and avocado sandwich and I could not pass up the Monte Christo (it’s been years since I last ate one).  We all asked for the strawberry lemonade.  The presentation is different.  Now the strawberries and ice are blended into the lemonade—almost like a smoothie, but the taste is the same as I remembered.  Yum! J  After filling our tummies, we went to the local Costco to fill up the car with gas for tomorrow’s trip.  In doing so I was also reminded that the state of Oregon (along with New Jersey) doesn’t allow a person to pump their own gas.  I’m not sure why this is, but it’s a bit weird to swipe my card, key it in and then watch someone else operate the hose.  I don’t think “full service” at gas stations had completely gone out of style when I was a kid (although I recall my parents always pulling into the “self-serve” isle of the gas station—which makes me think that people paid extra for “full service”), but I have no idea what the reasoning is behind not letting me pump my own gasoline in these two states.  I guess I’ll chalk it up in the “whatever” category and move on.  Anyway, with full stomachs and a full tank of gas, we returned to the KOA to play another game of pool and call it a night.  Tomorrow we’ll be visiting Ben’s favorite National Park: Crater Lake. J

The Ben Vacation 2015 – More Trees, a Lighthouse & Tacos

This morning we decided we’d had enough of cereal for breakfast and went to check out a local store for those great nutritional foods … like donuts and danishes and muffins. J  We also started considering dinner for this evening.  Jennifer had thought about a pasta meal, but the fact that I was only able to pack one medium sized pot in the truck started to cause us to rethink that idea.  As we wracked our brains trying to figure out what to eat tonight, I had an epiphany (cues angelic light and choir)!  I started roaming around the store while the rest of my family wandered behind me like ducklings as they tried to figure out what I was doing.  After confirming that the idea had merit, I announced, “What about soft tacos?”  The idea was met with much rejoicing (wink to Monty Pylon and the Holy Grail) and we set about confirming that other main ingredients were available in the store for this bold culinary experiment.  More on the results later—like the tease line there? ☺

Chillin'

What power!

In the intervening years since our last visit to the redwoods, memory has faded enough (even though we have pictures of our time spent in the groves) that try as I might, I could not remember the location of some of the areas we visited.  We ate breakfast in a park not far from the redwoods visitor’s center in Crescent City.  My thought had been to get a map of the parks and try to go back to places we had visited before, but when we entered the building after finishing breakfast, there were a lot of people there and suddenly, I figured we could go where the wind blew us (so to speak).  With this thought in mind, we got into the car and drove to the Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park.  I pulled into the turnoff and drove left and found myself at the entrance to the campground.  A helpful state ranger (who had probably been dealing with clueless people like me all morning) gave me a map and highlighted how to get to the Stout Grove.  She said there were some good trails there and a river walk.  I thanked her and we followed the map to the grove.

Isaac 7 years ago

Thankfully, I found a place to park and walked to the head of the trail, which descended about 400 feet or so down into the grove.  Ben felt he make the ascent back when we had finished so we made the descent and began our exploration.  At first, I couldn’t remember if we had visited this grove or not seven years earlier, but the deeper into the grove we walked the more I felt something familiar about it until I realized this was our second time visiting these trees.  The reason it hadn't recognized the grove right away, however, was that changes had taken place over the intervening years.  For instance, during our walk through this grove 7 years ago, I was able to take this picture of Isaac pretending to lift the tree trunk over his head.  I thought it would be fun to do an update picture, but the trunk was nowhere to be found ... at least, not in that form.  My guess is that it crashed to the ground at some point.  Realizing changes like this did not take away from my enjoyment of the area.  If anything, my wonder was enhanced because I felt as though I were seeing the Stout Grove for the first time a second time. J  In fact, we came across a huge burl in a tree that looked to us like a fist so I took a picture of Ben and Isaac giving the burl a fist bump.  Turns out that I took a picture of Ben, Isaac and Jen in front of this same tree burl 7 years ago.  One of the trails lead to the Smith River, but that trail had a steeper downhill descent than the trail bringing us into the grove, so we nixed that idea.  We spent the rest of the morning wandering the trails inside the grove and taking pictures when such caught our fancy.  At one area Isaac climbed onto a fallen tree trunk and gave an impression of being on the bow of the Titanic (complete with sound effects).  Ben then stood and gave an impromptu soliloquy of preparing the Ents for battle.  When we pretty much had walked all the trails, we returned to the slope at the trail head and Ben used me as "human cane" to help him walk up the hill.

"I'm the king of the world!"

"Ents, rise up and fight!"

Back in the car, we looked over the map the ranger had given us and decided to also go to the Simpson Reed Discovery Grove.  The grove was marked as "wheelchair accessible" which lead us to believe Ben would have an easy go of navigating the trail.  I didn't recall walking this trail seven years ago either and it appealed to me to visit an area we hadn't seen.  As much as it may have been fun to visit trails that we had walked 7 years ago, I think our visit was made better with the mix of old and new trails.  Some of the things we saw in the Discovery Grove was a redwood truck that looked like a corkscrew; a shattered trunk that was large enough for Jennifer, Ben and Isaac to fit inside; a group of five or six redwoods that probably shared the same "parent" tree and and grown up in to surround it like children around a maypole; and a natural tree bridge from a tree that I don't think was a redwood, but had sent a root arching over the ground from one side to the other.  Again, as the day before, I was awestruck by the beauty and majesty of the "old growth" redwood trees.

Family togetherness

Corkscrew

Happy with the things we had seen over the two days, we decided to drive back into Crescent City to the area where the Battery Point Lighthouse was located.  We had visited the islet where the lighthouse is built on our first trip and had noticed that tours appeared to be offered, but on the day we had come 7 years ago the lighthouse had been closed.  We wanted to go back to see if there was a chance that the we could take a tour and we remembered the great tide pools in that area: we had seen lots of star fish and other tide pool sea animals during our previous visit.  Since it was low tide, the walkway from the Battery Point “vista area” (as the sign called it) and the lighthouse was open and free of sea water.  After climbing the knoll upon which the light house is built, we found that tours were being conducted so we waited for the next one to begin.  While we waited, Jennifer wanted an updated picture of the boys standing next to a wooden whale sculpture located on the edge of the grounds.  About five minutes later, the front door of the light house opened and the lady inside asked if there were five more people who wanted to take the final tour of the day—we stepped forward to claim those spots.

The Whale before

The Whale now

We payed our "voluntary" fee for the tour and our guide told us that we were not allowed to take pictures inside the house.  We would be able to take pictures when we went up into the light tower, but not inside the house.  She cited "national security" as the reason for this ban.  Her statement seemed a bit odd to me (we can take a tour and look at everything inside the lighthouse, but we can't take pictures until we get up into the turret?), but not wanting to spend the rest of my days in some CIA gulag, I complied with the request.  We were told that the Battery Point Lighthouse is one of the oldest functioning lighthouses along the Pacific coastline.  When the Coast Guard began decommissioning other lighthouses, the people of Crescent City told them they wanted to continue operating their lighthouse and would do so using volunteers.  Eventually, the Coast Guard told the city they could take full control of the place with the understanding that if it needed fixing, the city would be on the hook for the maintenance and repairs.  The lighthouse is now operated by volunteers who stay in the house for a month at a time, conducting tours and doing what is necessary to keep things functioning properly.

After viewing the various rooms and hearing the stories of its construction (it is quite a sturdy place) and some of the people who have lived in the house and operated the turret light since the 1850s (we saw the chair owned by the first man to live in the house and operate the turret, we were told that his ghost still likes to sit there and smoke), we were given the opportunity to actually climb up into the light tower.  Unfortunately, this was where Ben had to bow out of the tour.  The ladder to climb into the turret was nothing more than iron steps buried into the side of the wall.  He took one look at it and said he would meet us back at the bottom.  With the way I had to twist myself to squeeze through the narrow opening at the top of the ladder in order to pull myself onto the floor of the light tower, I’m not sure Ben could have pulled himself into the tower even if he had been able to climb the ladder.  I told him that later, but it didn’t do much to help him feel better about the fact that he couldn’t participate in the full tour.  Finally allowed to take pictures, I tried to get a panoramic view of the sea.  I also focused on the St. George Reef Lighthouse located north of the Battery Point house.  The view was interesting and the tour fascinating, but I couldn’t see myself giving up a month to live in the lighthouse.

We found Ben sitting outside when the tour was finished.  He was disappointed that he couldn't climb up the ladder and enter the turret.  Isaac helped him feel better by suggesting that they do another scene from their movie in and around the lighthouse and the nearby shed.  After about 15 minutes or so, we started back toward the car, but decided to stop and look amongst the rocks to see if we could find any tide pool creatures.  Once again, we cam away disappointed.  Seven years ago, the rocks were teeming with star fish and urchins and anemones and other little sea creatures.  Now the area was depleted, seemingly because people were taking the animals as souvenirs (someone hauled a star fish out of the water while were were standing on the rocks and waved it in the air like she'd found a wall hanging).  We watched her in shock.  I wanted to yell at her, "You do realize that's a living thing, right?" but I don't think it would have made any difference.  We felt helpless as we watched her and her family return to her car.  Ben and Isaac found a colony of hermit crabs, but other than those and a bunch of anemones, the rocks where desolate compared to our previous visit.

Preparing dinner.

Jen explaining the soft tacos.

Hungry (the breakfast muffins we had were quite filling), we returned to the store to purchase taco fixings.  The sliced black olives were gone (bummer L), but we were able to buy everything else needed to make our fanciest campfire dinner.  After we returned to our campsite (in the redwoods!), I used the pot and a spreading knife (funny how one can improvise when needed) to cook the hamburger meat.  I couldn’t find taco seasoning at the store, so I substituted chili seasoning (which worked quite well).  When the concoction was thoroughly cooked, we sat down at the picnic table and feasted on soft tacos.  I was quite happy with my culinary efforts.  We then played some more foosball and called it night. J

The Ben 2015 Vacation - Church, Trees & Ocean

Setting up camp in the redwoods

I’m camping in the middle of redwood trees!!!  They are smaller than the trees found in the National and State parks, but they are redwood trees.  This is awesome!  In the days leading up to our leaving, Ben and Isaac asked me if any of our KOA camps would be “in the woods.”  Our very first KOA experience was the campground near Mount Lassen National Park seven years ago (the only national park we are not visiting this time around—Yellowstone is the substitute for Lassen J).  What continues to stick out in the minds of the boys about our stay there is the fact that the campground was in a forest-type area.  We stayed in a kabin during that visit—not a tent—but they liked the fact that we were surrounded by pine trees (our stay in the Jackson Hole KOA had that type of feel to it, but I think our not so good night sleep negated any good feelings we may have had).  I had looked at our various campgrounds via Google Earth a couple of times and had noticed trees that seemed to be a part of the property, but I couldn’t be certain.  Consequently, my answer to their question had been, “I don’t know.”  Well, now I do know and I am very excited about this—in case you couldn’t tell. J

Before arriving here, we first broke camp in Eureka and traveled a few miles to McKinleyville to attend church with the Arcata Ward.  From comments made throughout the morning, several families from the ward were on vacation, but the ward also had quite a few families who were on vacation that were visiting.  Ben asked me to stay in Elder’s quorum with him and we learned that there were more people in the quorum meeting who were visiting than regular members; happy to help swell their ranks for the day. J  One thing I found interesting about the chapel was the stadium seating—for lack of a better term.  I’ll attempt to describe this: as we walked from the foyer into the chapel, we were still on what I would call the ground floor.  As we turned to survey the chapel, however, we immediately saw that the floor gradually sloped downward until it reached the final row and the podium area.  Because Ben does better when he can stretch out, we walked down to the first row on the left hand side, so I have no idea if the podium can be seen from the overflow area, but the configuration was pretty unique (at least, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen anything like it).

After sacrament meeting, Ben, Jennifer and I attended the Gospel Principles class which, we found, was being taught by the two sister missionaries serving in the ward.  They did a good job with the lesson (how could they not; it was on missionary work J) and all three of us participated.  Elder’s quorum was taught by the president.  The lesson focused on attending the temple.  During the section focusing on teaching our children about the importance of the temple, I enjoyed listening to the examples of the brethren attending of ways they have tried to instill in their children a love for the temple and offered a few of my own.  Seeing that I recently completed the Temple Preparation lessons with Ben, I felt good about my efforts with Jennifer in teaching Ben and Isaac about the importance of the temple.  Still, as we left the building to continue our trip, I felt impressed to ask Ben and Isaac about this question and was happy to hear that they were satisfied with our efforts.

From church we drove along the Redwoods Highway (the 101) toward Crescent City.  Since it would take only about an hour and a half to reach our destination, I felt we had time to make some stops along the way, but without being certain of where to go or what to do, I decided to play things by ear.  It wasn’t long before we began to see redwood trees.  As I said in my post about our stop at Sequoia National Park I like the sequoia trees, but the redwood tree really capture my attention for some reason.  It’s funny, the trees are part of the same family and they both grow to such amazing heights, but the redwoods strike me as much more majestic than the sequoias.  Their bark is such a deep red that the trees look black and their leaves have a way of reflecting the sunlight that makes their branches seem to be the resting places for angels.  I also think that the volume of redwoods has something to do with my love of these trees.  The redwoods are everywhere while the sequoias are only in certain places.  Because of the high volume, I feel constantly surrounded by these towering, regal trees (have I waxed poetic enough for you yet J).

View from inside the trunk

Redwoods frog

When we came upon the exit for the north entrance of the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway, we decided to turn off and drive along the road for a while.  Soon, we started seeing turnouts and I asked everyone if they were interested in taking a walk—they were so I pulled into one not long afterward.  There were path openings on both sides of the road.  We chose the path entrance on the east side and began our exploration.  This path started taking us up a hillside almost immediately.  Ben managed the trail okay at the beginning, but when it continued to rise, we stopped and hiked back to the car.  We did take some fun pictures along the path.  Isaac was able to squeeze into a burned out trunk and take a video of what he could see through the hole in the top.  A little later on, we found a frog as well.  The path on the west side of the road was much more level with only gradual ascents and descents.  We walked this path for about 30 minutes or so before returning again to the car.  Satisfied with our little adventure, we drove back to the 101 and continued on our way.

Talkin' smack to the sea

About 15 minutes later, the highway curved toward the coastline and revealed a parking area for the beach.  Reminded of a time seven years ago of time spent on a beach not far from Crescent City, we made our next stop of this leg of our trip.  Jennifer rolled up her pants and switched to sandals in order to walk in the water.  The sand was black—granulated lava rock I’m thinking—with large obsidian boulders scattered here and there and encrusted with barnacles and what looked like clam shells.  We found a couple of starfish attached to the bottom of one of these rocks.  Ben and Isaac played a game where they would run forward onto the wet sand and then run from the next wave rolling up the beach.  At one point they hopped on smaller rocks next to a larger one to escape from getting their shoes wet and Isaac actually started trash-talking the sea (that’s one I’ve never seen before J).  After walking for about half a mile, we came across a boulder strewn area perfect for tide pools.  We found a bunch of sea anemones.  Two very large rocks thrusting from the water about a mile from shore were teeming with birds.  From the pieces of crab we found on the rocks, they were probably the perpetrators of the remnants of the crab feast.  At one point, however, I caught a movement in the water and found a live crab scuttling as close to the sides of the boulders as he could.  When I turned to look at him, he froze and then tried to slowly inch away from me while I pulled out the video camera to take a picture of him.  Other than that, the amount of tide pool life was scarce, but it was fun looking.

Dinner!

Feeling hunger coming on and ready to drive to the KOA, we returned to the car to continue our journey which brings me full circle back to where I began—with our tent set up in the center of a group of redwood trees!  I must mention the importance of advance planning.  When I walked into the office and told the lady at the register that I had a reservation, she replied, “Good, we like to hear people have reservations when our camp is full.”  He comment leads me to believe that she had turned away quite a few people throughout the day.  After setting up our tent, we had our own brand of camp food for dinner.  I did much better with the fire … okay, I broke down and cheated with a resin fire starter block purchased from the office (I don’t like making purchases on Sunday, but I had no patience to wait another 45 minutes to get the fire started and it was $1.25).  Jennifer had an idea to make chili nachos.  She actually bought the chips, nacho cheese and chili (and a manual can opener) before we left.  I heated the chili in the pot I had been able to shoe horn into the trunk before we left.  Heating chili over a fire … not exactly earth-shattering nor will it qualify me for induction into the Mountain Man Hall of Fame, but for us, it was a major camping accomplishment. J  Dinner was a success and our hunger satisfied.  We finished the day with several rousing games of foosball before retiring to bed … in the middle of redwood trees!