california: where dreams come true

i apologize for my lag in posts - it's been hard to have a moment to sit down with my laptop in a location where i can actually access internet! we've been moving it seems very quickly through the wonderful state of california. we aren't going to slow down until this weekend (well, at least be in one place for more than 1 or 2 days) when we get to pasadena outside of LA. my cousin caitlin lives there with her boyfriend brent, and she moved out there this may. she actually stopped and visited me when i was living and working in columbus as one of her first stops in her cross-country move. so now it's my time to visit her! i'm so excited to see her, and hear about her job and life in california. which i'd love to call home for awhile, i've decided. anyway - we're in big sur right now, which is about 1 1/2 hours away from santa cruz, where we stayed last night. it's sean's 24th birthday today and i'm pretty sure it's been an awesome and memorable day! but first...

our first destination in cali was the redwoods national park and forest - very close to the border of oregon. we were in absolute awe of the magnitude of the trees that you find there, they are incredible! here is me standing looking up and completely entranced by their height and beauty. it's just nothing like any forest i've ever seen before. we camped in the elk prairie campground, which was absolutely beautiful. we were instructed to find our own site from the ones available, and we almost missed this gem of a campsite the first couple times we circled the tent loop that was still open for the season. the site was completely tucked back into the woods, and we had plenty of space and choices for where to pitch the tent and put up the hammock. we slept that night under a huge tree (not a redwood however) that was covered with green moss and had huge extended branches. there were a few smaller trails near our campsite, but we mostly hung out at camp, cooked dinner (still had veggies from the farmers market in seattle) and just relaxed. we had been incredibly sore from our hikes in crater lake which took you up a couple thousand of feet in just a half hour, so there wasn't much hiking during our stay. we did have a great fire however, and a wonderful night's rest amongst the redwoods.

the next day we were traveling to napa, and we drove along the avenue of the giants, which is about 32-miles of scenic forest and had many turn-outs where you can just get out and take pictures or admire some of the oldest trees in our country. we actually stopped at one of the tourist traps in the redwoods, the drive-thru tree tour. it totally was not worth $5 - but i really wanted to actually see what the draw was and what the tree really looked like (there were 3 drive-thru trees along the road through the forest). we stopped in leggett - and drove through their giant redwood tree. it was a pretty big let-down, mostly because it just seemed so unnatural to have nature commercialized and to have some private company making money to allow people to drive through a part of the environment. but i'm glad we saw it just to appreciate the untouched beauty of the natural world.

i actually am not able to continue this post right now - we need to get back to our campsite in big sur, but i'll post a continued post when i'm settled in LA! lots of love to everyone.