Post Redwoods

So we're back. From five glorious days (more like three full days and two partial days cause we were driving) in the Redwood forests of California.

First off, I had a blast. Boyfriend Jon's family was fun, the Redwoods were breathtaking and we didn't have a repeat of Deception Pass Tent Floods. So I'd say this was a first class camping trip.

We played a variety of board games, made fires, roasted smores, told stories, chased the kids around, cooked, hushed the dogs, did some hair braiding, and most importantly, relaxed.

Our drive down was beautiful. In the past we'd listened to audio books from the Ender series. This time it was to be Xenocide. However, the quality of the audio was so poor we quickly turned it off. The drive, while beautiful, seemed longer as we pulled into the campsite after dark despite having left at 6:30am. It wasn't until the drive home that we realized Google Maps LIED. There is no way we could possibly have done the trip in 11 hours. Even with minimal stops it still took us over 15. I'm convinced that most of this is due to the fog and twisty windy turns where there's no way to go the speed limit. So now we know for future reference that we need to leave earlier and plan on at least 15 hours.

The Redwoods. Just wow. I can't get over how big some of the "small" ones were. We climbed up over 20 feet into the air on one of the felled trees. And i spent most of a long walk in the woods with Boyfriend Jon's family thinking about how they filmed Star Wars Return of the Jedi amid tangled roots and thick underbrush.

Things i learned about the redwoods:

• Often, the trees grow from not from seeds, but from sprouts off of the stump. And they form living cathedrals in a perfect circle around the original stump.
• The reason they survive so well is the fog i mentioned before...comes in off the coast and absorbs high up, so they don't have to move the water all the way up from the ground.
• Physics says it's impossible for a tree to grow over 450 feet
• The tallest tree is 379 feet tall. Only slightly less than the height of the Great Pyramid as it stands today.
• The Redwood Forests that we have left is only about 10 percent of what was once there. Most of it was brutally cut down. 
• There was violent protests to stop this all the way up into my own lifetime when they finally got the picture that clear cutting was a bad idea during Redwood Summer in 1990.
• Now they've learned more responsible ways to grow and harvest Redwood lumber. 

And personally, i can attest to the constant moisture. We had full sun most of the time we were there, but our sleeping bags were constantly damp, and there was a massive humidity.