Showing posts with label redwood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label redwood. Show all posts
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Travel: Avenue of the Giants

In the past couple weeks I've actually been able to cross a couple things off my 30 before 30 list. So here's the first I did, I ran a 10k!

The Avenue of the Giants marathon is one of the most sought after marathons in the state, and now I know why. I've driven the Avenue before but we stayed the entire weekend up there and got to do all the fun kitschy touristy stuff before running on Sunday. And man oh man it was THE MOST beautiful run I've ever done.

We drove up on Friday afternoon getting to the campground late in the evening, thanks traffic. Our tent spot was amazing and right on the river which was lovely to wake up to. First we stopped in Garberville and had breakfast at a great little greasy spoon. It was a teeny town, but had a lot of charm and cute store signs.

Garberville

In the morning we woke up bright and early and got started on all the fun 1950's kitschy touristy stuff! We first stopped by the One Log House and the Grandfather Tree. Unfortunately the grandfather tree but you could see it from the road! It's a redwood that has a circumference of 55ft and 245ft tall, and it's over 1800 years old!

Grandfather Tree

Then we walked over to the One-Log House! It's so cute, is was made from a hallowed out log in 1947 which is sad to know it was from a super old tree... hopefully it was a fallen tree :( Anyway inside the Log house it had a kitchen area, a bedroom area with two twin beds, and a living room. I wish you could rent it, it reminded me of a little log house we had for my calico critter toys I played with as a kid!

One Log House
One Log House Interior

Next was Confusion Hill which is a good ole' mystery spot and roadside attraction! I know there's lot's of mystery spots all over in Kentucky, Oregon, Santa Cruz, and lotsa places. There were little kid things, a train ride, a shoe house, and other fun stuff. Their main attraction was the defying gravity house! Water and balls go up hill, and you swing to the side... one can't even standup straight!

Confusion Hill
Confusion Hill
Confusion Hill

In actuality it's just a crooked house. The weird thing is that actually all the weird angles and such made me feel a little sick and lightheaded. The floors were all at an angle and it was a little dizzying.

Confusion Hill

After we drove back towards our campsite and to the Shrine Drive-thru Tree! It's of course like any drive-thru tree, EXCEPT it's a naturally split tree. It was cheap to get in and even though it's really only a loop you drive thru, stop and get your picture, it still was really fun. Driving through the tree was a little worrisome though! Next now I need to go through the Chandelier Tree!! Around the little park was a little walk-thru house, a group of trees and two little houses carved from stumps. It was pretty cute!

Shrine Tree
Shrine Tree
Shrine Cathedral Tree

We spent the rest of our Saturday we hung around and walked around. There were so many grove that I'd love to explore, but we only walked around a couple. The most amazing one was Founder's Grove. It was a small looped walk where the founders tree is, an albino tree, and tons of gigantic fallen trees. I swear the fallen trees were larger then the ones standing, they were incredibly huge and beautiful, the patterns the root systems looked like beautiful flowers.

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We went to bed early so we got lot's of rest before Sunday's race. We got up extra early on Sunday so we could park by this grove near the race. Then we napped a bit before walking to the starting line. I'm really glad we did cause there were cars parked beyond ours when we walked down. When we got to the start there were quite a lot of people but no where near as many people as big city marathons, which is how this marathon tries to be, more small and intimate. The marathoners had already started so we all had to just wait for the half marathon to start then the 10k. I hope that maybe next year I can do the half marathon! I was so proud of myself running this 10k. And I think it was actually an easier run because of how amazingly gorgeous it was. Whenever you got tired or mad at running, all you had to do was look up and see the beautiful trees surrounding you. I was able to run two miles without stopping which doesn't sound like much I know, but I'm more of a run walk kind of gal. After that I only stopped for 10 seconds after every mile. Mike only took one walk I think, but he is a runner, so he of course didn't need as much walking as me :) But it wasn't bad cause look I'm kinda smiling in my pictures! I finished in 1:07 and Mike finished in :59, I'm really proud of my time, I beat my goal and Mike made his, YAY!


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Before and After the run!


Running with other people really helped, I soon started pacing with a few women and that kept me pushing myself. With all my rowing I found that it helped me so much with breathing, I didn't have any breathing issues. The only thing that hurt was my middle toe and my knees were a little sore. Overall I can't wait for my next race! And I hope to make the Avenue of the Giants a yearly endeavor!

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If you ever have the chance to visit Northern California, you have to stop and drive the Avenue of the Giants. It really is the most beautiful drive I've experienced (and I've driven lots of places!) and has the best redwoods. Better that Redwood National Park, John Muir, anywhere, it's absolutely breathtaking.


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Travel: Oregon & Portland

Over Thanksgiving weekend Mike, the dog and I took a mini road trip up to Portland, and to visit some of his old high school friends in Southern Oregon. We drove up the coast and first stopped and camped at Fort Bragg. The ride up was kinda the worse, We were training Tripp in his carrier case for our flight home this winter. Of course he got sick, so that was a fun drive... Then after really winding roads up the coast we finally got to Fort Bragg in the dark. It was interesting where we camped... not somewhere I'd want to go again, but an interesting none the less.

Cali coast
Glass Beach

After a night of Tripp puking again on Mike while he was sleeping we woke up bright and early and got the heck out of that campground. First stop was the glass beach which actually used to be where the city dumped their trash in the early century, and now it's a beach full of sea glass. Really pretty but kinda a weird tourist attraction, hey see where our trash used to be! Make a necklace out of it! hehe.

Avenue of the Giants

Soon we were off up the coast on the 1 and soon driving on the Avenue of Giants, which I drove when I first moved out here, but it was still so beautiful! We even stopped by Paul Bunyan and Babe the blue ox... unfortunately he wasn't talking this time, But it was good to get another picture with him. We then headed up to Grant's Pass, OR for one of the best Thanksgiving feasts I've had in so long, we spent it with some of Mike's old highschool friends that now live up there, and the food they prepared was amazing. I'm a little ashamed that we didn't have anything other than wine to contribute.

Friendsgiving
Williams valley

We stayed over for the night and in the morning Vikki and Adam took us on a drive up some mountains so we could see all of Williams Valley. Of course it was raining but living in the drought and working at a weather station I can't ever complain about it, I now welcome the rain I hardly see. After our goodbyes we started up to Portland, grabbed lunch in Eugene then got to our AirBNB in the early evening. The Airbnb was soooo adorable, it was a little basement studio decorated perfectly, I kinda wish I could steal everything... or at least steal all their ideas :)

AirBNB

After settling in we headed out for the evening and went into downtown Portland. After walking around for awhile in the freezing cold (I swear my body can't take it anymore) we ended up having dinner at Picnic House, I think I was "mmmming" every bite, it was SO good, and their cocktails were equally delicious. I had the pork chop and bread pudding..... mmmmmmmm.... Unfortunately we stuffed ourselves so we couldn't try dessert.

Picnic House, Portland, OR

The next morning we packed our stuff up and headed to SE Hawthorn to meetup with blogger buddy Meg at Blue Star Donuts. It was so awesome to meet Meg in real life, we've now known each other through the internet for awhile and it was so naturally hanging out. We stopped in a few stores, and spent the most time in the book store, nerding out over comics and she gave me some new suggestions, namely Rocket Girl, which looks awesome, I can't wait to read it all... I'm actually half way through already. We hugged and said our goodbyes just in time on the way back to the car it started sleeting. Man I really don't know how to handle winter.

Meg
My favorite "I didn't realize I took a photo" photo
Blog Buddies

From Portland we crossed over into Washington for a bit, got some coffee then headed back down to Oakland... Yep we drove the entire 9+ hours that day, of course it was raining like crazy but that's alright, and it was a good test for Tripp in his carrier for that long, he only yelped a couple times.

Hail Tripp

Anyway it was a fun little quick trip, and I'm so excited to go back to Portland, I hope to go back over the summer and go hiking in the mountains!