Summer Vacation - Part I - Redwood National Park

I know it's the first week of October already, but now that we actually have a blog up, we would like to share a few things we did over the summer - starting with our summer vacation.

Let me first preface this by saying it was an an extremely stressful summer, as we have still been trying desparately to sell our home in Michigan. It still feels like we have one foot in Washington, and the other foot caught in a bear trap in Michigan. Our good memories from living there for five years will last with us forever, of course, but we will be so much more at peace once we have resolved our obligations to the home in Michigan.

The home has been on the market since June. And when you include the 4 months it was on the market last year, it is truly amazing how few and far between the leads really are. But we remain hopeful that we can see resolution soon. It's been a complete nightmare otherwise. So, the vacation was timely in the sense that we needed more than ever to step back, and enjoy each other's smiles and laughter with the kids.

Nancy's brother, Jeff, lives in Ashland, Oregon, just minutes north of the California state border. When we visited him in June earlier this year, we promised ourselves that we would return to see the beautiful landscape in that area. I remember as a kid, I would travel with my family to see both sets of grandparents in Twain Harte and in Auburn, and going to see Yosemite National Park, but I had never gone through the Redwood National Park - boy were we in for a treat!

We made our way down South from Grant's Pass, Oregon, and drove on a tiny one lane, winding highway. It was close to dusk when we finally arrived in the park. We kept driving through the park, closer to our motel. Then we had an idea. The Park is right on the ocean, and the kids had never seen the ocean before. So we kept driving west until the road literally stopped. We parked the car at the edge of the dropoff, and asked the kids to get out (they still did not know what they were getting out for...).

We stood there at the ledge, and all five of us just stared in awe of the Pacific Ocean, staring right back at us. The kids were esctatic. We climbed down the ledge, and walked on the beach, collecting all sorts of colorful and interesting-shaped driftwood. One piece was shaped like a dogbone, and another shaped like the bony finger of the wicked witch of the west. As we were about to leave, we were treated with a beautiful sunset. So we just sat there for a few long minutes, watching the sun drop into the water- something Nancy and I had actually never seen before either! It was great timing, and nice start to the vacation.

The next morning (Saturday), we started in Klamath. Some of you might remember a commercial Dodge did a couple of years ago, about the gigantic statue of Paul Bunyan, his ax, and his big blue ox. Well we happened to stay two minutes away from where that commercial was filmed. Here's a few pictures. I think if I remember correctly, both statues weighed more than 20 tons!



Some of you may remember hearing about how some trees are so enormous, that you can actually drive a car through them. Well, there's actually three of them in this area, and we have proof that you can INDEED drive your car through one! It was pretty amazing... we stood inside this tree, and looked directly upward, and could actually see the light of day through the very top of the tree. Apparently, the tree had been struck by lightening a few years back.





I was a little confused as we drove around that day. I thought there was just one Redwood National Park - but apparently, there are two national parks, and two more state parks. We obviously did not have time to see all of them, so we approached this like any adventure, and went wherever our car took us. This next picture more or less highlights the drive through the redwoods. We were so amazed at the sheer SIZE of these things - this one here was literally ten feet away from the highway, so we had to stop and take this pic...



This next tree (below) we found on one of our hikes. Whatcha want to bet this treecave is occupied by some large furry hibernating creature in the winter time?



These next two pics show show a tree appropriately named "Big Tree". Seeing these pictures is one thing, but seeing these trees live, in person, was an absolutely incredible experience. I remember as a kid, going with my grandfather to a California state park, where some early settlers had cut down a tree so large, that they actually made a dance floor out of the remaining tree trunk! This tree below was every bit as big as the one I saw when I was 12, if not bigger. This "Big Tree" here is said to be 2900 years old, over 400 feet tall, with bark over 1 foot thick! To give you an idea how big this thing is, it's diameter can be measured by 30 men's armspans!



We went on a beautiful mile-long hike in a place called Lady Bird Grove, named after former first lady "Lady Bird" Johnson. The landscape was stunning, and really put things into perspective. No matter where we went, we were surprised to find even bigger, and better, and more beautiful parts of nature throughout the entire day. What an amazing experience this was - one which we hope the kids will soon not forget.

Let me set up our next blog (part II) by saying this: all summer long, we told the kids that we would be going to see the Redwood National and State Parks. We built that up as much as we could, and after all was said and done, we felt like we accomplished what we had set out to do. Needless to say, however, our trip was just getting started. The kids had no clue what was going to happen next...

The next morning, we got up very early and had breakfast at IHOP, where the kids each chose "smiley-face" pancakes to eat. After they had ordered, I secretly took our server aside, and asked for a special favor, which he gladly agreed to. When the food came out, they were each served with their "smily-face" pancakes - but with a small twist! We asked the kids, "hey - that's cool - what do your pancakes look like?" And they all responded that the pancakes looked like the face of Mickey Mouse. Then Nancy and I asked, "well, how would you like to actually MEET Mickey Mouse?" Then once we pulled out the tickets to Disneyland and Sea World, they went NUTS!

Stay tuned for Part II - we'll update our blog a little later!

- The Jacksons