It wasn’t hard to wake up early while we were camping
because the sun came up about 4:30am. We managed to sleep in until about 7, but
then we decided it was time to get on the road. We only had a 3 hour drive
today, but we wanted to stop in a few places along the way.
The drive out of the trees was mesmerizing. Every turn revealed the forest in a new way. For a while, we just drove with the top down in silence, trying to take in every piece of the woods as we zoomed past.
The first stop on our trip was at the Eternal Treehouse. This was an old carved out trunk from a redwood
that had been cut down hundreds of years ago. Apparently, the trunk was used as
shelter for Indians, trappers and sailors who were passing through. It was a
large enough space for there to be windows, and a small history of the one-room
house was displayed on the wall. It was a pretty cool little stop.
The next stop was Patrick’s Point State Park which was
recommended by our Road Trip USA book.
It had some really beautiful lookout points, two of which (mussel point and
wedding rock) were absolutely worth the trip. Jason actually climbed up wedding
rock, which was a little too treacherous for me.
The last stop before heading to Brookings was a little spot
called the Trees of Mystery. This was
the ultimate tourist stop for us so far (even more so than driving through a
tree). While there is a pretty cool gondola ride through the trees here, the
major attraction are the GIANT Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox statues that
are positioned at the park’s entrance. Even Jason and I couldn’t resist
stopping to pose for a few pics here and we were surprised when the 49ft Paul
Bunyan statue started talking to us! I can’t imagine how fun that job must be. Essentially
one guy just sits there all day chatting with tourists from the perspective of
Paul Bunyan. Oh, and babe the Big Blue Ox was anatomically correct…which was a
little weird.
Finally after the Trees
of Mystery we were on our way out of California and into what Jason calls “The Other Brookings”. He
went to college at South Dakota State University which is in Brookings, SD and
is surprisingly about 15,000 people larger than Brookings, OR. Either way, the
Brooking in OR is a small little fishing town with a lot of character. We found
our hotel easily and were really impressed with our amazing ocean views. We
also have a huge Jacuzzi in our room which helped both our back recover from
all the driving we have done.
After we checked in, we headed to the pool for a little bit
before going to dinner.
Finding a place to each was kind of a chore. We found one place
on google called the Vista Pub, but when we got there, it was closed. We then
tried to go into a place called PJs Tavern, but no one even looked up when we
came in the door. In fact, a guy with a towel hanging out of his back pocket
whom I assume was working there actually walked by us without so much as a
glance. We left there and headed next door to Ken’s tavern, and the woman
behind the bar didn’t even turn around. It was like we had some kind of local
repellent on us. I was beginning to think we would never find somewhere to eat
when we came across Wild River Pizza, which was good enough for both of us.
After dinner, we returned to the hotel to take in the sunset
on the ocean and to relax a little before bed.
Tomorrow is a long 5 hours drive to Newport, OR with many stops
along the way, but for now, I will just drift off to sleep with the sound of
the ocean’s waves crashing onto the shore just outside our window.
No comments:
Post a Comment