Our excursion today was focused on seeing some of Northern California's animal and plant life, especially the redwoods. The Redwood Highway is an interesting road, through a few small towns and up and down large hills or mountains. The drive along the Smith River reminded us of a road rally - twists and turns on a somewhat narrow road with steep drop offs and rock slide areas. A drive not for the faint of heart. Thankfully we were in the van, can't imagine driving this in the motorhome.
To our surprise, we came upon the tunnel! We never expected to see tunnels through the mountains but this is the third one we've gone through on this trip. Usually we turn an corner and there it is. The interesting part about this one was the bicycle notification system. If the light is flashing it is because a bicyclist has pushed the button to notify you there is a cyclist in the tunnel. We didn't see it in operation - in fact we didn't see cyclists on this leg of our trip, for a change.
We saw a pull off for the Darlingtonia Trail and decided to investigate. It was a nature trail to a bog and the wild flowers were in bloom. It has been a long time since we've attempted to identify plants, especially without the aid of reference materials. So we took the pictures and then consulted the internet to try to put names on the plants. The darlingtonia are pitcher plants. They were in the bog area and very plentiful. We've never seen these in the wild and they were quite large.
The signs cautioned about the presence of poison oak in the bog. We don't see that in PA but recognized it here and avoided it. These inside-out flowers were pretty and rather unusual.
There were several wild orchids, including a species of lady slipper and this pretty pink one that we still have not identified.
These cats ears were unusual because they have lots of hairs on the petals. We can certainly see why they are called cats ears.
But the prettiest flowers were on the western azalea. We lucked out when we decided to travel at this time of year since there were a lot of wild flowers in bloom. After this pleasant stop, we continued south on our route to the redwoods. Then the 50mph plant id started. We used to do this when we were taking botany and for a few years after we graduated. But it is much more challenging when you are out of your home territory. Most of the roadside plants were in areas that prevented stopping.
Dennis slammed on the brakes when we crossed this bridge. His grandfather was Allen D Lehman! We backed up and got a picture of the sign just for posterity. I googled Allen F Lehman but couldn't find out who he was.
The redwoods are in parks that are managed jointly by state and federal agencies. So some maps list the Redwoods State Park and others the National Park. We were prepared with our old fart pass but didn't need it. Our first stop was the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. The employee at the gate recommended we take the Howland Hill Road drive. We were warned it was a dirt/gravel road with some potholes. Yep! it had potholes. But we drove right through a stand of redwoods and could stop and gawk and photograph.
There were quite a few cars taking that trip, which was about 3 miles. We could have continued for another 8 miles but decided to head back to the main road. Besides, how many redwoods can you look at?
The drive continued along the Smith River. We were amazed by the color of the water and concluded there must be copper leaching into the river from somewhere. The water was so clear (compared to back home) and the color so intense.
When we drove south of the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, we realized we could have seen the same sights while driving on a main road! The big difference was we couldn't stop and touch any of the trees.
Route 101 (the Redwoods Highway) took us through the town of Crescent City and we had our first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean (on this trip). The water seemed rough but not quite enough to make the Tsunami warning posters a reality.
Eventually we reached the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. This is where we had hoped to see the Roosevelt elk that are only found in this area. And sure enough, there they were. We saw the smallest herd in the park - several bulls still in velvet and several cows. They were grazing and laying down in the field. As tourists (including us) stopped they would watch but never seemed to be in a panic.
Drive back to the RV near Medford Oregon was almost 3 hrs with a stop at the local Rite Aid to pick up Dennis' prescription refills. Nice service from Rite Aid to be able to fill Rx at any location!
No comments:
Post a Comment