Thursday, May 21, 2009

Redwoods!

My baby sister lived amongst the Redwoods for four years. I have dreamed about going to see the Redwoods. What better way to do it, then to visit, and watch my sister graduate from College! As soon as she was across stage and holding her diploma we were off to see the magnificent Redwoods. IT is going to be hard to put into words HOW beautiful and wonderful it is. If you have not visited this wonder, please, do! We visited a lot of different areas. They are not all in one park. It is spread out along the 101. The kids called this the "Chip n Dale" tree. If you remember those fantastic cartoons of our childhood, there is one were they make a tree a "redwood" to make Donald happy. They were so excited to see it.


This is Jake trying to count all the ring in this hunk of tree. It is over 600 years old! Good luck!

Okay, I know this is not m car, but I have the greatest neighbors ever! We need a car to hold eight people and my van only holds seven. Our neighbors let us switch the van for there SUV! Thank you sooooooo much. It was a little too wide to fit through the tree. That didn't stop us!

This is one of the scariest things I have done in my life. I am IN a redwood tree. Jake, the boy scout that he is, wondered off the path and found this little cave that took us INTO an old half dead tree. You had to drop a few feet, then get on your hands and knees to crawl to the center of the tree, then you could look up and look up the whole way of the tree to see the sky. I was so terrified, but Jake and my sister talked me into it. I am so glad they did! It was a sight to behold. Words can't describe what I saw in there!


This is Jake in the whole. Just to let you know Jake is six foot two. Can you see how BIG the whole is?


This is Jake and his exploring kids climbing a group of trees. I like how mother nature made a natural step latter up the tree. We saw a lot of that.


It really looks like he is jumping off. He isn't really. This was a great set of trees to climb. It too had a great "latter" going up it. It went up about twenty feet. It was so great.


Here I am, being just as crazy. It really gave you a rush!


This is me after climbing the way up. I felt so good doing this. It was a sense of freedom after a long battle with my stupid knee problems! Look at me now! (I did have to take a pain killer that night! lol!)



That is Jake up in the same tree. Can you see how big it is????? These babies were beyond HUGE!!





While you are hiking around you have to look up! That is part of the amazing beauty! I wish these photos really showed the fantastic wonder around us!


Don't you just want to visit? Look at this beauty!


Uhh.. it's a sister thing....



This is all of us at "Big Tree" It is one of the biggest standing Redwoods today. I have a confession, the fence told us to keep away from the tree, but we didn't listen. I just had to touch it! I had to feel it. I had to know it was real! It was exhilarating!


Another view of "Big Tree"
There are hundreds of more photos of us playing in the Redwoods. I am thinking I am going to have to do a slid show to show them all! But I am too tired tonight to figure it out. I will, hopefully, continue posting tomorrow about all the other fun we had!

1 comment:

Red Charlotte said...

I'm so glad you got to see the Redwoods. It looks like you had so much fun.