Trip and more Trip...

So Friday we got up after the Car Sickness bout, and drove to the "Tree's of Mystery" in the Redwoods National Forest. It was important for me to take my kids before it was gone (it's been around 50 years already, but the owner is in her 90's now) because my parents took us kids there when we were little. We have pictures of us in front of the Paul Bunyan Statues when we were little, and now I have pics of my kids there. Memories...

That's Austin standing at the foot so you can see how TALL Paul Bunyan is!

Paul Bunyan's Big Blue OX.

So Emily was pretty freaked out at first with all the trees and Redwood Trees are 150-200 feet tall, so it's pretty shaded and eerie at the forest floor. But eventually we had a good time. There are trees shaped into different things, but they are shaped naturally how they grew. They are amazing trees. One tree had fallen over 20 years ago, and a bunch more trees started growing out of the dead log laying on its side. And one big one grew out of it's root and grew up and over the log. It was pretty cool. And 100 feet up new trees would grow off of tree limbs of existing trees. It was amazing.

Can you see the new trees growing off limbs? And look at all those fern's! This was a zoomed in pic of about 150ft up!
This is the Brother Tree...Can you see how HUGE around it is! This tree was 210 ft tall! Yikes...

The Famous "Cathedral Tree" where many people have been married is there, and the Brotherly Tree. There was a Candelabra tree but several of the trees fell over.

Some Lumberjacks handy work on a log....all the carvings were from downed trees.

The Trees Of Mystery is a trail you take that has narrated story boxes along the way that you push to hear stories of Paul Bunyan and how he came to be. Myth or fact...it was fun for the kids to see the story unfold in front of us by log carvings that lumberjacks did.

Midway through the trail, there is a Gondola ride you take to the top of the mountain to a Vista Point. It is called the Sky Trail because it is a Treetop ride above these Giant Trees. It was so cool...but scary that we were so high up a side of a mountain. Here's a pic on our way up looking down the mountain through the fog. DH saw a Black Bear from his gondola taking a snooze.

It was a very neat experience. One Austin will remember and appreciate, but not sure how much Emily absorbed of it. At least we'll have pics to share!

XOXO

P.S. Austin is in all the pics and not Emily because she would run screaming every time I tried to get one of her, little brat! LOL