Day Eighteen -- to Prairie Creek Redwood S.P.

Day 18 – California – Jed Smith State Park to Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park

The kids slept until 9:30 a.m. – I think partly because it’s so cool and dark here in the Redwood Forest. I woke up long before they did and lay in the tent listening to the sounds of our campground neighbors getting ready for the day. Someone in the next campsite had a dog named Ruby; we couldn’t see anyone over the giant ferns that separate the sites, but I could hear them calling to her. It makes me miss our Ruby dog!
Because we got such a late start to the day, we decided to pack up camp as quickly as we could and grab breakfast in Crescent City. Of course, even without the chore of making, serving, and cleaning up after breakfast, it still takes us a good hour and a half to break everything down and pack it away again. We stopped at a nice organic café in CC at 11 a.m., just as they started serving lunch. So, I guess we all missed breakfast today. Like I’ve said: Our schedule is so out-of-whack!
After lunch, we stopped at the Redwood Forest visitor center in town, picked up our Junior Ranger activity packets and got some ideas for some good hikes and overlooks. Then we continued south on the 101. Redwood National Park has a northern region, near Crescent City – the Jed Smith California State Park is adjacent to that. Farther south, the national park kind of hugs the coast for a long time before it opens up into a larger southern region near Orick, CA, and adjacent to the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, where we’re camping tonight. So we only had to drive about 80 miles along the coast today, giving us plenty of time to dawdle.
The park ranger in Crescent City recommended stopping at an overlook near the Klamath River, saying it’s a good whale-watching spot. We found it, a couple miles off Highway 101, and took the half-mile trail (the sign said it was an ancient Yoruk Indian footpath) down steep switchbacks to a gorgeous overlook on the cliffs high above spot where the Klamath empties into the Pacific (this is why, we’re told, the whales like to hang out here; they snack on the fish that come from the river). We didn’t see any whales – it’s probably too late in the season, anyway – but we did enjoy a sweeping view. It was very foggy, actually, and the coast was shrouded in haze. But just beyond the hills, the sun was burning through the clouds, casting a soft glow that made the cliffs, the rocky shore and the waves on the shimmering ocean all seem like they were lit from within.
What goes down must come up. So with a lot of coaxing and cheering from me and Keith, the kids made it back up the trail (despite Clare’s protests that she’s “all out of energy”), and were rewarded with cookies and lemonade in the parking lot.
We got to the campsite by a totally unprecedented 3 p.m., set up camp and then launched ourselves on a 3-mile hike through the cool, misty redwood forest, craning our necks at the giant trees, stopping every so often to crawl into a hollowed-out trunk and marveling at the plump banana slugs we encountered along the way. What a truly enchanted landscape.
Before dinner, I called my brother, Steve, in Berkeley, to let him know we’re on track for arrival tomorrow evening. We’ll spend the next five nights with Steve and Hélène, so this is our last night in a tent for a while. I think we’re all looking forward to sleeping in beds.
It’s been a busy trip, so far. I think Keith and I envisioned lazy afternoons and evenings spent at our campsites, with plenty of time for reading and sitting around the campfire after the kids are asleep. In reality, we’re pulling into the campground with barely enough time to throw the tent up and warm up some dinner. We put ourselves to bed right after we tuck the kids in. This camping trip has been a lot of hard work, and there’s been almost no time to relax. But at the same time, it’s been very relaxing. For the most part, we’re cut off from the high-tech distractions of our everyday lives. We’re not interrupted by the din of the television or the ring of the telephone; we’re not seduced to the computer to check Facebook and answer e-mails. I’m not compelled to drive to Target to pick up things we don’t really need. We have heard about the deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Faucett, but other than that, we’re out-of-the-loop as far as news. And we’re kind of surprised to realize that we like it that way.
By this point, we fully expected the kids to refuse to get back in the car in the morning; they’ve spent so much time coloring and listening to stories and coloring and looking at books and coloring some more as we’ve put nearly 2,800 miles on the van. But they happily climb back in every day, and, for the most part, they patiently entertain themselves until we get to our destination. In fact, in the morning, while Keith and I are taking down the tent and putting away sleeping bags, the kids are already buckled into their seats in the car, waiting to go. It must feel safe and familiar to them in there. We are all just so happy to be together. We have everything we need right here.