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California Road Trip

In the summer of 2018 I took my daughter on a 9-day road trip through California. Here is our little story.

Day 4

This morning I also slept in a little. I got up at around 8am. Katie woke up not too much later and we loaded the car. We drove to a new Starbucks in Strawberry Village because I longed for a good large latte. I ordered "A big latte" because I never know whether it's a venti or a grande or a magnificus.

On my phone I searched for a laundromat closest to Hidden Springs Campground in the Humboldt Redwoods and asked for directions. It was going to be three and a half hours. It was an easy straightforward drive with almost no traffic just on the 101. We arrived at the laundromat and I stuck our clothes in the washer. While that was running we walked to a local bakery to get some lunch. That took a while and was not worried that the laundry wouldn't be ready yet. It was indeed ready when we got back and started the dryer. During that time we bought some water and more s'more ingredients. Now we were ready to go to the campground and hopefully they had available spots.

At the campground kiosk two state park ladies were talking and it turned out that a tree had fallen over the Avenue of the Giants. She said they had availability and that we could drive around and write down two spots. We found one spot that was closest to a trailhead and another one we liked that was close to bathrooms. We picked the latter as it was also still close to the trailhead. The lady gave us a hand drawn map of a good swimming spot in the South Fork Eel River. She also mentioned that nearby, but not in the campground, there are mountain lions and bears. Occasionally if you go hike here (pointing at a map) you may see bear butts. Their butts because they will walk away from you. She also emphasized we should put anything edible and stuff with smells (like tooth paste), in the bear locker.

Bear safety always reminds me of my first trip - and hearing about bear safety - to Canada. In 2002 I participated in a biomechanics conference in Calgary. We had a day off and with a big  group we rented a van and headed off to Banff National Park. One of the professors was driving and I was sitting next to him reading about bears. Among many things it said that you should never allow a bear in your tent. That is your territory and you have to keep them out. "How do you keep a bear out of your tent?" I asked. The professor responded "By closing the zipper."

After we had set up our tent, we left for the Fork Eel River. We found it pretty easily. I brought my camera and GoPro too. The water felt great as the air temperature was above ninety. We swam around and jumped off a rock a couple of times that stuck out of the water. We also climbed a log that was half on land and half under water. It was very slippery under water as it was covered with algae. After a couple of hours we sat down in our chairs for a while and enjoyed our surroundings. Three vulture-like birds came floating down right in front of us.

I started a camp fire when we arrived back at the campground. This time it was a little harder to get a decent fire and we ate lukewarm hotdogs. Suddenly the fire got a lot better and our s'mores were good. After our dinner Katie did some coloring on her iPad and I downloaded my GoPro videos and photos onto my iPhone. It was almost 9pm now and getting dark. We put all our food and other stuff in the bear locker. We went inside the tent and I closed the zipper.