Got up later this morning to head out to Jedediah Smith Redwood state park which contains some of the largest trees known to man. We lounged around camp and so didn't get started until 11:30. We stopped off in Coos Bay to get some fresh seafood to cook at camp.
The drive along the Oregon coast was gorgeous making for a nice, easy drive.
Along the way The Steed picked up a thorn in her hoof so we had to make a short pit stop to have it doctored.
We got to camp late in the day, so there wasn't really much to do. On top of that Brett was pretty sick to his stomach, having decided it was a good idea to get a plate of fried oysters earlier in the day. We were also both really feeling the trip wearing us down. Almost at the one month mark, if there was a time we both might have decided to pack it up and go home, this would have been it. The pacific northwest is beautiful, but it is also cold and very damp. 40 degree nights and 60 degree days, often cloudy and misty, can start to wear you down after camping in it for long stretches. We went to bed early to try and start fresh the next morning.
Day 2
Woke up to a very nice surprise this morning. Redwoods is bear country again and they take campsite cleanliness very seriously. So seriously that they post signs on all the picnic tables directing campers to keep their sites "Crumb Clean". Well, this is what Mr. Raccoon thinks about your "Crumb Clean" stance park service.
It appears as though the raccoon may have had corn for dinner last night.
This pic is also a great visual representation of how we felt the night before. This morning we felt better, but hadn't fully recovered just yet so we had breakfast and set out to explore the Redwoods. These trees really have to be seen in person to get any idea of their actual size. The scale just cannot be captured in a picture, but we tried.
How many faces can you count in this evil tree of death?
Still feeling kind of crappy after the hike we decided maybe what we needed was just to lay around beside the gorgeous Smith River. We were right about that. We laid by the river for a couple hours and Brett even took a dip in the cold water. It was so refreshing and really got us back to the right state of mind.
We went back to camp, opened a bottle of wine and grilled one amazing seafood dinner while listening to Fleet Foxes and Lana Del Ray.
It was *almost* like being at home which was really, really nice and honestly just what we needed. We ate, drank and wound down by the fire with Sigur Ros' Elipses album playing all the way through. There was not a better record in existence for that moment. We slept hard that night.