Redwood Forest Day # 1

On Saturday morning the entire family got up
early and headed toe Crescent City Information Center-  this is the also the park head quarters for the Redwood Forest National Park.   We spent a bit of time talking to the park ranger and got some good advice about what to check out in this HUGE park.  There are several different units.  We explained we wanted to hike but we also had a 3 year old with, and that complicates things a bit.  The park ranger gave us some great advice.  First we headed into Jedediah Smith Redwoods.

You start by driving down  this really small and beat up gravel road.  I think technically it is a two way road but it is tight.  It isn't really possible to get good pictures of the potholes but you have to trust me that they were huge.

The trees were also huge, it is actually pretty amazing to just look at them and see how big they are.  We got out early so the road wasn't too busy yet, which was nice for us.  We definitely  took our time driving down this dirt road.

Our first big stop of the day was Stout Grove.  This is a short hike, it's a look, that they recommend for families and it was fantastic.  From here I am just going to let you all look at the pictures and let them speak for themselves!

Check out the color of the wood.

Funny Marcus Story of the day.  Marcus created a song, called the Redwood Forest song, that he sang for many hours on the trip.  It was so cute and it cracked us up every time he sang!

 

The Oregon Coast

The blogs are a bit out of order but I wanted to add this one anyway.  On the first day we got to Oregon we actually drove down the Oregon coast.   Really pretty but super slow.  It was a lot of fun and we go to see the beach.  Marcus was psyched!

 

 

Which for a Minnesota boy is always a great thing.  He ran in the sand and played and was so excited!

The Blankie liked the beach too!

We kept driving down the coast and it was gorgeous.  I really liked some of the bridges.

 

 

We stopped at some of the cute place on the side of the road and eventually found a place to hike at Cape Perpetua. This was the Thursday before Memorial day weekend so the traffic was still pretty light but you could tell people where heading out of town.  We saw plenty of hikers at Cape Perpetua.  It was a really pretty place

 

 After the hike down the hill (and back up again) Marcus was tired, and quickly passed out!

A little bit of Wine!

 

One of the things that we wanted to do while in Oregon/California was check out some of the wineries.  This is something that both Luke and I enjoy however this also tends to be a bit more difficult with the little guy along.

On the drive back from the caves we were literally 2 miles from a few wineries and we decided to just do it.  But we ran into one little snag, Marcus was sleeping.  He was super tired after walking the entire length of the cave and climbing around 500 stairs.

This didn't deter us from visiting, it just made it a bit more difficult and we had to take turns. 

Foris Vineyars Winery was our first stop:
Foris Vineyards Winery Website

 

The vineyard was super cute and the wine was good, so we picked up a few bottles, including one for my parents to thank them for dog sitting.  It was really cute.  Luke went in first and tasted the wines.  Next, he came back out to the car and gave me his recommendations and I went it to taste.  It is kind of an amusing way to do things but worked just find for us!

When we finished and picked out our wine, we headed down the road to the next place.  It was only

4 miles down the road.  This time we reversed our plan and I went in first.  We picked up a few bottles from here too!

 

Bridgeview Vineyards

Bridgeview Vineyards Website

  

I thought both of these places were super cute.  I think the second one had a much nicer set up to visit and enjoy a bottle of wine but I actually liked the wine a bit more at Foris.

Our little angel is still sleeping while Mommy and Daddy taste away!

The Oregon Caves

We went somewhere really cool and completely failed to take awesome pictures of it.  So I guess that I recommend that you all check it out yourselves!    We visited the Oregon Caves National Monument.  We have been to LOTS of caves before but this one was different and super interesting.

It all starts with a drive to the caves.  From the city Cave Junction Oregon, it is a 15 mile drive that takes approx. 45 minutes.  This time isn't because of the traffic.  The road is curvy and full of switchback- and it isn't all that wide either.  Driving it is an adventure in itself.  Luke did all of the driving and I didn't complain because I'm not sure I wanted to!

Eventually we made it to the cave.

 

This is where I stopped taking pictures- not exactly sure why but it was cool.  We went on the cave tour, which Marcus barely qualified for.  Kids are required to be 42" and be able to walk a mile.  He is 43" and the mile, well most days he can do it.

 

The tour brings you through most of the cave and offers lots of amazing view of stalagmite and stalactite and all of the normal cave features.  It had a ton of stairs running up and down through it.  It was a workout just making the way through the cave.  He is one picture of the caves.

When the tour was done we ended the day  at the caves with lunch at this super cute 50's diner located at the lodge in the park.  It was great-  Luke and I had root beer floats and Marcus, well he ate that entire strawberry shake!



Crater Lake National Park

A few weeks ago the family took an awesome trip to the west coast to see some National Parks and Monuments (and lots of other cool things).  Here is the first set of pictures I am going to post.

On Friday we visited Crater Lake National Park.  Let me start by saying that Crater Lake is not the most convenient place to visit.  It is pretty drive but not an easy one BUT it is totally worth it.

 We drove over to Crater Lake from Roseburg Oregon, where Luke and Marcus had a fun morning of visiting a wildlife safari.  I wasn't with but the pictures looked awesome.  The drive over took us about 2 hours and we stopped by a super cute lake (Diamond Lake) for lunch.  It was totally an old time resort and diner (it reminded me of the resort in Dirty Dancing, only that was on the East Coast).

The drive itself is pretty but it pretty much just feels like you are driving through a woods, for a long time.  The hills did get bigger and the elevation increased but it wasn't mind blowing beautiful.

We stopped at Diamond Lake, which was really the last stop before the park that had any food or gas options.  This lake is just a few miles from Crater Lake and it is a beautiful resort.  It was just getting busy for the memorial day weekend.  One thing that was kind of odd was the bugs that swarmed us.  They were called "Midge flies", I have learned since that time that the flies we actually saw were "Kalmath Midges".  We talked to a fisherman for a while and learned that the Midge Flies can ruin the time on the lake because they swarm and the fish eat them, leaving no interest to bite on fishing lines.

View from Diamon Lake Resort

So after we ate it was back on the road again and the scenery changed very quickly.  We started driving into SNOW!  I didn't expect that at all.  I had looked at some tourist books and checked out the national park website but none of them mentioned snow was a possibility.

 We learned that we were actually there on the 1st day that the north road (where we were driving in on) was open for the season.  We also learned that the entire road around the lake wasn't opened yet and wasn't expected to open until late June/ early July when the snow melts.

After entering the park one of the first things we came across was a barren dessert- No snow here! 
These are all Ashes from thousands of years ago.  Nothing grows here because the ash is up to 18" deep.

 Next we jumped back into the car and drove up the road to Crater Lake.  The elevation increased rapidly and we could easily see how deep the snow was from the winter.  The roads were busy but also in pretty good shape.

When we got to the first parking spot we were so excited to see the lake and it was amazing. 

Crater Lake is a lake that has no water coming into it or out of it.  The water that has accumulated in the crater over the years is all from the snow fall. 

The island in the middle is actually the middle of the volcano and it is called Wizard Island.  People can take a boat ride out there during the season (July - September) and hike on the island.  I think I am adding that to my bucket list.

We drove around the lake (the half of the loop that was open) and stopped and took lots of pictures.  We couldn't hike because there wasn't any trails open with the all snow.  Eventually we hit the lodge and the visitors center.



One last view of the lake!

One last cute and funny Marcus story.  Crater Lake was created when Mount Mazama, which was a volcano, blew up, taking the top of the mountain with it.  Marcus really loved the story and it took with him however he know refers to Crater Lake as the "broken mountain", so if he tells you about the broken mountain you now know what he is taking about.