When we woke up the next morning, it almost felt like it was raining. It was just heavy fog, dripping off the trees. Dave made a little rain cover for cooking breakfast.
I bought frozen bread rolls, thawed them overnight, and made fried scones for breakfast. Oh, they were good. We also had scrambled eggs - we needed protein for all our hiking.
Our cute little cabin! The boys had fun climbing redwood stumps behind us and playing at the park.
Chloe especially liked the porch swing in front of our cabin.
After breakfast we headed to another hike. We crossed the Smith River, which is the largest non-damned river in California. I pulled over to take a picture & saw a bunch of river otters down below.
I just love the red color of the redwoods!
These are the old growth redwoods, and this particular little hike is where the tallest tree in the world is located. It is not labeled, however, because they don't want people to vandalize it. Pictures just don't do these trees justice. They are so tall and majestic, and it feels like a sacred place.
I've got some strong boys!
We forgot the baby carrier, so it's a good thing this was a short hike. We had to go back to the cabin after this to get it.
Next we hiked down a little path to the river and explored a bit. The kids wished they had swimming suits, but we thought they were crazy. It was pretty chilly!
Spencer caught some newt-looking thing.
It was a long, slow, windy, hilly gravel road over to the fern hike, including a few creek crossings. My family doubted me; but I'd seen pictures of the ferns, and I was bound and determined to do it. The place we parked looked rather dull - just a big parking lot near the beach. But we hiked a little ways, turned a corner, and ended up in one of the most beautiful places we'd ever seen. It was like a whole new world!
This particular hike is where they filmed parts of the second Jurassic Park movie. Of course we had to watch that when we got back too, and it was totally cool recognizing everything.
It's basically a deep canyon with a creek flowing through it and huge walls of ferns and moss on either side from water dripping down. It looked so different from everything else around there, and it was amazing.
Again, pictures don't do this place justice. The walls of ferns were SO tall and lush and beautiful. I should have used my wide angle lens, but I just had my 50mm prime lens with me because it does better in low light.
So pretty!
My family agreed - it was definitely worth the crazy drive to get there!
We didn't really get to a specific end. It just got harder and harder to go any further, so we turned around and went back. There was a little scare when Dallin lost his pocket knife (it fell out of his pocket), but after a quick prayer, he found it right away.
It was low tide when we left the hike, so we stopped at the beach to look for agates. That whole area is famous for them. Basically, they're cool, smooth sedimentary rocks. There were tons of them, and we got some really pretty ones.
Levi was done by this point.
After all our hiking in low light, I loved this beautiful overcast beach lighting. We fit so many fun things into our day!
One thing I forgot to mention was all the wild blackberries. They were everywhere! So after the redwood hike, we pulled over and picked a ton by the side of the road. Then we put them in our chocolate cherry dutch oven cake that night. Oh. My. Goodness. YUM!!
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