Road Trip Day IV: Redwoods | Glass Beach

The Redwoods have been a bucket list item for me.  I don't have an actual bucket list, but it's one of the things I've wanted to be sure I visit at some point.  I didn't really know what to expect.  I mean, you go to see big trees, but what do you do?  Walk around in them?  Do you go hiking?  We tried to book a night to camp in the forest, but apparently those book up really quickly so there wasn't anything available.  This worked out better for our plans anyway, plus we didn't have to pack hiking equipment.  

We stopped really quick to see this giant Paul Bunyan talk to us.  We visited the gift shop and learned about the trees.  Then we hit the road again to find the Avenue of the Giants.  

The Avenue of the Giants is really just a really long road.  Again, I don't know what I expected.   I kept waiting for a great place to pull over and wander around, and then wouldn't stop because maybe somewhere better was up ahead.  I need to practice decision making.  But I did finally pull over so we could wander around.

It is fair to say that these trees are really, really big.  Part of me in was in awe of them, and then part of me was like "yep, these are trees".  They are really close to the road.  I kind of felt like Alice in Wonderland.

I was fully committed to driving through a tree.  We stopped at one place and it turned out not to be the one I thought we were doing, but we still drove through a tree.  I was terrified and wouldn't drive  through it (If someone is going to hit a tree, it's going to be the person who owns the car!).  We barely made it.  

After that, we made another stop to do a little more walking around.  There were a bunch of trees down which I LOVED.  So cool.

I had to hug a tree.  That's what you do around trees, right?  Then I did some climbing.  I love when nature makes you feel so small.  It is the coolest feeling.

After the Avenue of the Giants, we were set to continue our road trip.  Originally, we planned to get to San Fransisco this night, but instead we stopped early.  I found Glass Beach somewhere on a road trip guide and it quickly became one of the only things I wanted to locate for sure on this trip.  We hit the road to Fort Bragge, CA to find this beach.

Glass Beach is the COOLEST because it used to be a local dump from 1949-1967.  The waves broke down the glass and pottery left there, and now it is washed ashore as sea glass.  This was one of three glass beaches in the area.

We hit the beach right at sunset, which was perfect!  The beach looked gorgeous, and we were in between high and low tide (low tide would have been preferable, but beggars can't be choosers).  The beach was pretty big with lots of opportunities to climb.  You aren't supposed to take the glass from the beach, although many people do.  We gathered and then put it back.  This was the BEST place to stop at sunset and it was gorgeous.

We got to admire more sea lions out enjoying the sunset as well.  We finally called it a night, found a local speakeasy to grab some pizza and found a random hotel to stop for the night.

This was one of my favorite roadside stops from our trip.  The day was long with the Redwoods and Glass Beach, but totally worth it!

Road Trip Day III: Tillamook Cheese & Devils Punch Bowl

Road trip day three was mostly driving.  We took our sweet time getting out of Cannon Beach and headed straight to Tillamook, Oregon to the Tillamook Cheese Factory.  I don't know what I expected...I think mostly a little tour of how cheese was made and a gift shop, but what I got was an entire cheese experience.  Tillamook is set up like a well oiled tourist machine and I loved it.  It reminded me of Ikea.  I don't know why.  Maybe the hyper organized traffic flow.   

There are a lot of things going on.  Self guided cheese tour, lunch lines, ice cream lines, cheese taste testing lines, a couple gift shops, and people everywhere.  Campers everywhere.  

I don't even remember where we started.  I think we actually started at the bathrooms because this was a road trip, and nature calls.  Then we hit up the self guided tour, which was not that exciting.  I learned a little.  I watched cheese get packaged, but did not watch cheese being made.  Then we did some taste testing.  

But then we did the best thing.  Lunch.  And it was so amazing I took a picture of it.  I don't usually document my food, and this seems like pretty basic food, but it was delicious.  I had tomato soup with "The Piglet", which was ham, cheese, and caramelized onions.

This adventure took longer than expected.  Obviously we stopped at the gift shop (I bought a cook book for all my cooking with cheese), then grabbed some ice cream and sat outside.  After the cheese factory, we didn't really have a destination in mind...we thought we would hit the Redwoods, but judging by the distance on the map, that didn't seem likely anymore.  We also didn't have a hotel booked for the night.  So we hit the road to see how far we would get.  Highway 101 follows a lot of the coast, so we took our time and stopped a few times along the way.

I scoured the touristy places to stop as we drove and decided on Devils Punch Bowl and possibly sand boarding on the dunes along the way.  Devils Punch Bowl was an easy destination...the dunes, not so much.

Devils Punch Bowl was just a small jaunt over from the highway.  We hit it at low tide and in the early evening, so there weren't many people around.  That's pretty much all I know about it.  I had fun wandering at this stop, though, and it is pretty cool to see.

Because of the time, we didn't spend a ton of time climbing or hiking around, and the park information center was closed.  We got back in the car and went on our merry way.  

Also because of the time, we missed our chance to get down closer to the Sea Lion Caves.  They closed right before we pulled up, but we did sneak a peak at these guys getting their sun in.

Our next goal was to find the Oregon dunes and see if we could rent some boards and go boarding.  Or just climbing.  While we saw a bunch of dunes, we weren't able to figure out where we were going on the fly.  Instead, Google Maps took us to a real nice camper camp site.

These are not sand dunes, Google Maps:

So we went in search of a hotel since it was starting to get dark by the time we gave up.  We ended up in Bandon, Oregon at the Bandon Inn, which was a darling hotel and the perfect place for us to crash.  You would think after 3 days we would be out of Oregon, but apparently not.  We grabbed a late dinner (like...10pm) at a great bar and grill that I can't remember the name of, which is too bad because it was yummy.  It was also the only place open besides the Chinese restaurant down the street.  

Road trip day three complete.