Enjoying our big king bed, we slept in on Sunday morning. Eventually we got up and going around 9:00 AM, quite late for us. We drove the coastline for a while until the road turned away and we got a good mountain drive headed towards the redwood forests. We charged and picked up lunch for later in Humboldt County, CA at the "One log home" where a "home" had been built into a single cut of a redwood tree. A bit later we arrived at Humboldt Redwoods State Forest, which was amazing.
We started with picnic lunch then a short walk in the woods at the beginning of the Avenue of the Giants Road. The redwoods were magnificent, with this area hosting the largest grove of old growth redwoods in the world. We took pictures, of course, but they don't do it justice. We also started seeing a lot more flowers, both on the roadsides as we drove and in the forests. I took pictures when I couldn't identify the plant and used the Seek app to find out what they were later. There were plenty that I knew what they were growing wild - things that I had struggled to establish in my gardens! Lots of red-hot pokers, foxgloves, lupines and Japanese irises growing wild!
After we finished our walk, we continued our drive passing through a number of groves with massive trees. At the visitor's center we got more information and did another walk through a grove, seeing the third largest redwood in the world.
We hit the road again and were surprised to see some strange pedal-driven vehicles on the road. Turns out it was a 3-day, 50+ mile race of themed bicycles. Very northern California!
From there we continued up the coast, stopping at the Redwood State and National Parks. We got a recommendation for a coastal hike from the volunteer, and we headed to the other end of the park for the hike. It was short but unique, seeing many new flowers and plants along with cool views of the stacks in the ocean.
From here we continued our drive up the coast and into Oregon, charging at a Fred Meyers in Brookings - or so we thought. Here, we were skunked for the first time in our trip, unable to connect to the single charger on site. We headed back down the coast about 12 miles to a casino where we charged and had dinner. Casino dinner was pretty depressing, but we got our charge and headed to Harris Beach State Park just north of Brookings, arriving around 7:30 pm.
The campsite and entire park area was the nicest we've seen so far this trip. The area was professionally manicured providing privacy to every site. We strolled down to an overlook for sunset over the beach but didn't stay long as it started to rain. We made our way back to the campsite and were in bed at the end of daylight.
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