Heading North to Willow Creek

After my time spent with my brother's family, I had a long six-hour drive by myself to make up from the greater San Francisco area to Willow Creek to join Carl and the boys.

When I was plotting this trip, I had two routes as an option. Highway 101 is a famous, scenic drive would give me higher potential for views of the Pacific coastline - but it was estimated to be about an hour longer in length for me, not to mention I think I would have hit some rush-hour traffic going towards and around SF that way. Since I was doing this drive solo, I opted for the shorter, easier route, and the one that looked like it would be against the way all those commuters would be traveling.

And I'm so glad I did! It was stunningly beautiful, especially once I got off I-5 in Redding and hopped on Highway 299. First, I saw brown tourist signs in Redding for the Sundial Bridge.

 Which was stunningly beautiful, and one of the more unique bridges I've seen. It actually tells time, with its giant sundial!

And then the rest of the drive... whoa... it was one breathtaking view after another.

The Whiskeytown Lake National Recreation Area may have been my favorite.

I need to plan a way to go back and just spend some time there, because it was incredible.

Suffice it to say, my drive took a bit longer than expected because I was stopping the car so many times.

I spent well over seven hours on my drive. But the time flew by because I was enjoying myself so much. You just don't get scenery like this back in Texas every day.

Finally, I found my way to Carl's uncle's property, which had no address, I just had to count mileage and look for the "green gate." These landmarks also helped let me know I had found the correct green gate. Yay for little boys!

I was so happy to be reunited with my munchkins. Fourteen days apart was the longest we've ever been, and I missed these little rascals. They quickly updated me on everything they had been up to while they were gone. Like hunting for Big Foot and finding his foot prints...

Chopping wood and stacking it...

Building a flag pole for Uncle Louie...

Feeding the deer every night ...

Making smores in the firepit...

And just having a great time.

Carl and I feel very blessed that his family opened their doors to us to give the boys such a great experience this summer. How lucky they were to see vistas like this everyday for two weeks!

California's Redwood National and State Parks

The Redwood National and State Parks is actually a whole series of parks in Northern California, that you drive next to along Highway 101.

The parks are located about an hour from Carl's family, so this was our first big stop for our trip.

First stop - the first ranger station we encountered so we could get their NPS passports stamped and pick up a Junior Ranger booklet and some patches for their blankets. It wasn't very bust at the ranger station, so one of the rangers was nice enough to give us our very own presentation all about elk antlers.

Nice, since we were about to see the largest grouping of elk we'd ever seen up to that point.

The trees were incredible.

These are coastal redwoods, so they are different than the redwoods we (Carl and I) have seen in Muir Woods, just outside of San Francisco.

Our photos don't even begin to do them justice.

We had a wonderful time walking through the forest.

Even though it was a summer weekend, we hardly encountered anyone else on our hikes.

Which was perfect for pretending we were stranded in the forest on Endor, riding on a stolen speeder and trying to escape the Stormtroopers (Return of the Jedi was filmed here back in the 80s). Can't you just see the speeder ducking low to race through these criss-crossed trees?

We especially loved the trees you could walk inside of - how often can you stand inside a tree?!

We also worked on the boys' Junior Ranger activities.

We visited a couple of different parks that are included in the Redwood National and State Parks - some even included beaches.

We didn't get out and explore any of the beaches, though - that would happen later in the day.

Along the way, we visited the giant Paul Bunyon statue at the Trees of Mystery.

The redwoods were just beautiful.

And so impressive! The tallest trees in the world are here. Its hard to capture their height, but in this picture, we are nowhere even close to the tops of the trees, and you can see how my small my husband and son are compared to them.

The boys had already spent some time there with their cousins before Carl and I joined them, and they were thrilled to be the 'experts' who showed us all the highlights. How often does that happen? It was very sweet.

Our last stop in the parks was the Jedidiah Smith park, for more beautiful trees.

And to turn in their completed ranger booklets. We just love the Junior Ranger programs!

We loved the Redwoods.

And one of the best parts? Its free!

Time flies

I'm still overly sentimental about Alex's last first day of elementary school. How did this happen?!?! So I went back and pulled out a retrospective on his first days of school, starting with kindergarten (and before we were smart enough to pick the school sign for every other 1st day photo).

Stop growing!!!