Last of Oregon Trip (the Redwoods)

We made the decision to go and see the Redwoods. We always say we will do it and then we are so exhausted by the end of the trip that we just want to get home. Well that was the problem again. We had already been on the road for over a week and a half and knew that we could be home in 12 hours of driving (2 days) or we could see the Redwoods and spend about 24 + hours of driving and take 3 days to get home. Well we did it and won't regret it but it was sooooo long and made us all ornery. We left Cresent city which is on the north end of the redwood and headed out we were seeing some big trees. Oh my goodness they were huge it really is such a wonder and marvel and amazing to see Gods creation. That's when we came across Paul Bunion and his ox. We decided to just take a picture because it was funny, but after looking around we found out there was a tram ride and we could see lots of stuff in there so we paid to see the redwoods and have it all done in 2 hours instead of all day driving around to fun places.

See how tiny Steve and the kids are in comparison to Paul and the ox

This tree had trees growing up and out if it. Pretty cool huh?

The cute kids. It was so dark in there and my camera was about to die and I really got no good pictures. It was a bit frustrating to see that all my pictures turned out blurry or dark.

Here Steve and the kids are next to the octopus tree, or was it the elephant tree (see the trunk) either way it was pretty amazing to see all those roots.

Here the kids were crawling under the tre through that hole. It is simply amazing to look at these massive trees and their huge toots

Here the kids are on the other side of the tree looking back through the tunnel

Damen and Seth at the end of a tree that had fallen over. That is the root system of the bottom, it's huge and yet it wasn't even the biggest tree we saw!

This is a blurry picture of the Cathedral trees. Several weddings take place here every year in front of these trees. It is quite the wonder.

I believe this tree was called the big brother either way it was really big

Here are the boys going up on the tram. Oh I hated every move they made. I somehow feel like our car will come off the cable if they move too much.

The rest of us on the tram

Here's the tram itself

Steve and Kenna at the top

It was fun to see but then that's when all the driving started. We typed into the Tom Tom to take us to Reno, Nevada and it kept telling us to go back into Oregon and take the five down, well we thought that was stupid why backtrack when we could cut straight across on this road we could see on the map? So we followed our fat guts and made a dumb move and ended up on a road similar to the Alpine Loop for the next 4 hours, then had an additional 6-7 hours ahead of us. We went all the way down to Sacramento then back up and over to Reno because we were not about to take another shortcut. The kids were tired, Railey and Kenna were sick with coughs and didn't feel good, Railey even had a temperature. Kenna threw up because it was so windy I could only look straight ahead to keep from throwing up so Steve was driving and dealing with the kids but we finally made it around 9:30 that night.

We got up early the next morning and hit the road to make it home before rush hour traffic. The highlight of that drive was seeing the Salt Flats. How sad is it that I am 33 and never seen them. But now I have and don't need to see them ever again. It sure was good to get home but our yard had gone to pot. Steve got out of the car went straight to the back yard came back pulled out his lawn mower and went to work. After unloading the car I headed out to pick weeds and did that for the next 2 hours. It just felt good to be out of the car and putting my energy to good use! It took a couple days to get the yard back in order but we did and oh yes we had a great trip to make up for the messy yard.