Day Six and Seven

Day 6 was incredible; we hiked in the Redwoods! Specifically the northern section in Jedidiah Smith State Park on a trail called "Hiouchi Trail" which goes along the Smith river. It was very rainy, but the trees protected us from most of it. It actually reminded us a lot of Northwest Washington, but the size of the trees was a shock. We were blown away at the size of some of them, and we found many old growth redwood trees along the way. This trail led us (after 3.7 miles) to the spectacular "Stout Grove", a grove of amazing old growth trees. By the end of the hike, we were sore and tired. We made dinner and watched Star Trek in bed. Grace told me I snored a bit... ;)

 Grace inside a hollowed out Redwood!

 Yuck...

Happy!

 Even the clovers were giant compared to those in Washington!

  Grace climbed as high as she could...

 Crazy curves on this tree

 Bark

 This tree fell down at some point, but the branches continued to grow and now look like trees themselves!

 Crazy roots

 Entering Stout Grove!

 I'm a tiny man...

 This was probably the biggest tree we found. The ranger said there was a 1500 year old Redwood and we think it was this one.

 We think a woodpecker lives in here. It would be the mansion of woodpecker homes.

It was an extraordinary day! The redwoods are so beautiful, I heartily recommend everyone visit them at some point in your life. Day 7 (today) will consist of Grace preparing for a video interview for an elementary music job (wish her luck), preparing for the next leg of our trip, and staying out of the rain.