The World's Tallest Tree
Woke at 6am in the morning and went back down the coast to Trinidad for a walk on the beach.

Got breakfast and morning coffee at the Beachcomber Cafe in Trinidad before we were to make the drive through Redwood National Park. Free wireless. Finished up and around 9:30am we were off to see the Redwoods, then on to Oregon!

After breakfast, we found out that the world's tallest tree was not actually in Redwood National Park. It was in Humboldt Redwood State Park, about 50 miles south, the opposite way from where we were going. We couldn't come all that way and not see the world's tallest living thing. So we decided to drive all the way down to see it. At mile 1257 we found it. They don't actually allow dogs on the trails in that park, but we were able to sneak in and snap a couple of pictures. It was only about 100 yards in from the trailhead. Again, couldn't come all this way and not see it.

It was a good thing that we made the trip. If you really want to see magnificent Redwoods, go to Humboldt. It's so much better.

Not really sure how accurate that statement is now. Because we went to Humboldt first, we thought we'd save some time and didn't drive around the National Park. But it did seem that there was better access to the trees in Humboldt. The great redwoods grow right at the edge of the road and the roads seems to wind right around them. Here's a couple of new pictures from Humboldt:

Leaving California (Finally!)
After Humboldt we turned around and backtracked north, up the California coast through Redwood National Park. Took another beautiful drive from Crescent City to the Oregon border. This road follows the Smith River, and it was gorgeous! We even made it down to the river once. That's right, almost three days since we left we finally got outside of the state of California. We crossed the border at mile 1433.

We checked into a campground just west of the town of Medford, Oregon. Got there just before 8pm. We were planning on heading for Crater Lake in the morning. Here's a new picture from the campground:

We had to drive into Medford from the campground to post this blog. There wasn't much open in that town, but we got lucky and found an open random wi-fi connection. Sometimes, you just gotta work with what you've got.

A couple things about northern California and Oregon that we noticed. There a lot of drive-thru coffee shops. They are everywhere! So convenient. We don't have many of them in SoCal. Only seen a couple back home. The other thing is that there a lot of hippies. Or at least people who are into the hippie culture. Seems to be a very liberal area too. Saw a gigantic "impeach Bush" sign hanging on someone's house. Another thing we learned about Oregon. It is unlawful to pump your own gas here. Every gas station has pump attendants. In Grants Pass, just after we crossed into Oregon, we stopped for gas, and there were these ladies out there in hot, hot sun, pumping gas for everyone. Not sure if we were supposed to tip them or not. Didn't seem like anyone else was.