Traveling, Part Three: California Part Two

Now it's December and we've been to Costa Rica, Mexico, back to the U.S., to Germany again, to Scotland, to England, and home to Cyprus since I posted Part Two. If I take the same amount of time and include the same amount of detail for each part of the rest of our trip, I won't finish blogging the trip until...well, until all the children are grown, I would guess. So I'm going to go ahead and upload here the photos from our camping trip (way too many photos, and nowhere near all of them--with a great deal of effort, I got it down to only 23 essential ones...) that I already sorted out and watermarked in Picasa back in October, and I will attempt to make minimal comments (I say that now, but the likelihood is that I will ramble on quite a bit...), and after this I will try to make much shorter posts. In any case, the people who read my blog are all on Facebook with me, so I really should just upload all the photos to Facebook and leave it at that. (If there's ANYBODY, just one person, reading this who is NOT on Facebook with me, let me know!!)

So...on Wednesday, September 27th, we eventually arrived at Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, where we set up camp. (And as an aside, finding that link just now, I learned something I may expound on later!!) Marie, Katie, and Helen shared one tent...

...and Elisabeth had (by choice) her own tent, where she slept the first night until about 2:00 a.m.

As of about 2:00, she slept in the tent with Jörn and me, and did the second and third nights as well.

Mom and Dad slept in their RV, of course, and Lukas did, too, in the bed over the cab.

Once camp was set up, we went for what at least my mother and I would call a walk and my husband and some of the children would call a hike. Either way, the redwoods fascinate me as much as they ever did.

Interestingly, there is also quite a lot of sand there, where a lot of ancient sea creatures have been found. The park is not far from the coast, but much higher, but was evidently under water at some point in the distant past.

Back at camp, I got this photo of my four daughters:

At some point, my brother Shawn and his wife Lindsey and their two daughters arrived. S is 4 1/2 and we'd met her several times, as they had visited us in Cyprus when she was a baby, but we hadn't seen her since we were last in the U.S., two years ago. We hadn't yet met N, though, as she won't be two until January. S jumped right in with the cousins, but N was a little more wary. Helen, as usual, was immediately entranced with N, who was happy to be followed around by H. All of the girls spent a lot of time coloring while we were in camp.

 

Thursday morning Shawn and Mom made breakfast...

 

..and shortly after, Shawn had to leave for work.

I had gotten up early Thursday morning and gone for a walk, but didn't take the camera. Nor did I take a map, but when I looked a map later on, I realized that a lot of the trails weren't on the map anyway. The trails themselves are well-marked and I have a good sense of direction, so I wasn't worried about getting actually lost, but I like returning a different way that I started out, so it took a bit longer than I'd anticipated.

After breakfast we packed lunches and everybody set out. We found Cable Car Beach, as planned, so those who like freezing cold water put on their swimsuits and splashed around.

Mom, Jörn, Marie, and I decided to walk a bit further to the visitor center:

From the visitor center there's a fenced-in loop one can walk around, but we only walked through half of it, back the way we'd come but parallel to the trails, and then out of that at the end and back to the trail.

When we got back to where the others were still at the river, Dad asked if Katie had found us. No, she had not. Apparently, not long after we had left, Katie said she was going to catch up with us. Mom and I immediately started back towards the visitor center, Mom on the road and I on a path at the side. I hadn't jogged since last year November, but found myself moving pretty quickly, and in sandals, too. When I got to the parking lot and still hadn't found her, I was not feeling particularly calm, but as I headed towards the building, I saw Katie through the window, talking to a ranger inside. The time I made on the last 25-ish-meter sprint is probably the best time I've ever made. Neither Katie and I had cried until I was hugging her.

While there was basically only one road from where we were to the visitor center (the footpath and the road are usually visible from each other), we'd been inside the loop while Katie was still on the road, so didn't join the road/footpath again until Katie had already passed that part, which was how we missed each other.

Friday morning I went for an even longer map, still without camera or map, but I was intrigued by a sign to Big Rock Hole and tried to find it. I went about half a mile down a very narrow, very steep path that had a lot of cobwebs across it, so I slipped and slid down the trail with my arms in front of my face, thinking "I sure hope that the next person on this trail appreciates the lack of spider webs!" And then I got to a river, and to a sign saying "trail closed." At least on the climb back up, I appreciated that there were no spider webs...

Shawn arrived back in camp sometime late Thursday night, and on Friday he and Lukas headed back to Cable Car Beach to go fishing. They caught several crawdads and fish and Lukas, at least, had a wonderful time.

My dad volunteered to stay in camp and all the girls (my four daughters, my two nieces, my sister-in-law, my mother, and I) drove to the visitor center and walked the Redwood Grove loop.

This is INSIDE a living tree.

The girls played on this natural slide for ages:

Then we went to a playground, where there was also an old covered bridge. S got a splinter in her foot, which Lindsey removed with the tweezers from my pocketknife: easily the most used part of my pocketknife in all 22 years that I've had it! I included this photo more because it shows N wearing an outfit that had been a hand-me-down to Katie and was also worn by Helen and Elisabeth. :-)

Friday night my youngest sister arrived, together with her daughter, her boyfriend, and her boyfriend's two daughters, but I don't have permission to post any photos of them. There was one really cool moment with one of her boyfriend's daughters, about six years old. She'd asked my daughters what grade they're in in school, and Helen said, "Oh, Mommy teaches us." Without the slightest bit of confusion, M responded, "Oh, you're homeschooled. My cousin is, too." It was incredibly refreshing to have someone just see it as totally NORMAL!!

Saturday morning I went for yet another walk, still determined to find Big Rock Hole. I'd looked at a map and determined that Buckeye Trail was the way to go, and and figured out one way to go there and another to go back, and that I would have to cross a river without a bridge. The river wasn't very deep, so I took off my shoes and socks and crossed it and picked up the trail on the other side...but didn't find any signposts, and the trail petered out and I was no longer sure if I was on an actual trail or just a deer path. When I found another loop of the river, a bit narrower and therefore a bit deeper, I stood there for quite awhile trying to see any trail on the other side, but there was nothing obvious, so I very reluctantly turned around and went back the way I came.

And TODAY, three months later, when looking for the link to the Park, the first thing I saw on the webpage was this:

BUCKEYE TRAIL CLOSED BETWEEN RIVER CROSSINGS

The Buckeye Trail is closed between river crossings due to extremely rough terrain, making hiking between Buckeye Trail and Big Rock Hole impassible.  

 Ah. It would have been nice if that had been marked on the trails or on the maps...

I got back to camp when breakfast was over (they'd saved some for me) and the rest of the morning was spent packing up camp (at least for the grownups), and then Shawn gave everyone who wanted one a ride on his motorcycle, which is what is being admired at this point:

 ...And here is a photo of the first time ever that I've been on a motorcycle!!

 S had never been on her dad's motorcycle before, either, but wanted to do what everyone else had!

 She was pretty pleased. :-)

 N also wanted to go on, but the helmet was already rather too big for S, so there was no way it was going to work for a 20-month-old! She wasn't very happy about that, but did accept a cuddle from Lukas, of which I have an adorable photo, but it has other people in the photo, so isn't here.

We drove back to San Bruno where my parents dropped off the seven of us and picked up their dog, and then started their 6-hour drive home to Eureka. Erin was out of town and we just relaxed (and did laundry) the rest of the day.

I originally had an even longer title for this post, but the sub categories were getting a bit ridiculous, so I just left it with California Part Two...but there's going to have to be a California Part Three, as well, as we had another three full days. After that, though, I'm going to have to scale waaaaay down on details of the rest of our trip...