Avenue of the Giants

On Sunday, June 20 on our way home from my cousin Jan's wedding to Ben in Eureka we drove on the Avenue of the Giants. This is a 30 mile drive that takes you through the Redwoods along Highway 101 and has many places to stop along the way and walk among the awesome Redwoods.

What we could see as we drive through the Avenue of the Giants.

When we stopped at the first spot Sean took off running and climbed this tree stump. It was like a kid in a candy store. He was so excited to see the tree and climb to the top.

Although it was just Sean, Trevor, Hayley, Auntie Karen and I we were able to take a picture thanks to a small pile of Redwood branches and my quick feet. If you look close on the top of the tree stump next to Sean you can see Trevor and Hayley.

Although there are many picture of my bum (thank to Auntie Karen) as I climbed this tree stump, here is a nice family picture with an enormous Redwood.

The kids had fun climbing on top of the fallen trees.

Look how huge these trees are.
It was amazing to see and walk beneath them.

If you look through the hole at the back of the tree, really the top since it fell, you will see Trevor poking his head through.

Look how massive this Redwood is.
We look so small in comparison to how round its trunk is.

Thanks to Trevor and Hayley I was not stuck under the fallen Redwood for long.

Hayley climbing on the roots of this fallen tree. How cool is that.

It was so neat to see the fallen trees and imagine what it must have been like when they fell over. I bet this made a LOUD sound when it fell and split in half.

Just hanging out in the Redwoods.

It was so cool to just stand in one spot and look around at all the different Redwood trees. Some were still standing and were enormously tall. Others had fallen over but you could see how tall they used to be. Still others had fallen and landed on other trees causing one or both to crack/split apart.

During our drive through the Avenue of the Giants we were able to see some beautiful areas of the Eel River. Several times during the drive we crossed over the river and each time there was something different to see.

Trevor and Sean saw this tree from the road and had to go climb out on it. From the car it looked like one tree that had broke when it feel, but it turned out to be two different trees, one going each direction.

Here they are half way across the first tree they encountered.

And now out onto second of the 2 trees. This tree is more than double the length that you can see in this picture. Not sure which tree fell first as where the meet the first tree is split in half.

Of course, us girls were not gonna let the boys be the only ones to climb out on these massive tress. We just were much slower in our walk as it was a good distance from the ground. I was nervous climbing out there with Little Miss Hayley because she was so fearless and kept trying to go ahead of me and rather quickly too.

After we all took turns walking on the trees I decided the whole family should climb out and have Auntie Karen take our picture. This time I made Sean go with Hayley.