May Vacay {Day 5: Humboldt Redwoods and Eureka}

Day 5: Wednesday, 5 May 2021: Eureka to Humboldt Redwoods State Park back to Eureka (Swimming, Eureka's Sequoia Park, Old Town)

We left Eureka after eating our Comfort Inn Bag breakfast (a muffin, juice box and frozen breakfast burrito that we warmed up in our microwave in our room) and headed south not quite an hour to Humbolt Redwoods State Park and the famous Avenue of the Giants.

Our first stop was the Grieg-French-Bell Grove. According to redwoodhikes.com, this spot was especially special because of the thick, lush redwood sorrel undergrowth with lots of trails meandering through and around and every which way. He mentioned that even in the smallish (acre-wise) grove, you can get lost because the trails just go everywhere. But we found our way out and had a marvelous time wandering all to ourselves. This was the spot that most seemed "Forest Moon of Endor"-like to me (and only a day late for "Star Wars Day" on May the Fourth!).

This is "The Girdled Tree", which had its
bark removed in 1901 and shipped to San
Francisco for people to gawk at. Amazingly
it's still alive today after all that!

Notice his T. rex claw fingers? :D

Our next stop was Founders' Grove, a few miles down the Avenue. There are some super huge trees here (like everywhere), including some super huge fallen trees like the famous Dyerville Giant. Whoa!

This was the biggest one we had seen yet
(at least officially with a stat sign).
The number that really gets me is the last one:
190.4 feet is the height to the lowest branch!!

I can barely even see the lowest branch!!

Here's our first glimpse of the Dyerville Giant.

Those splinters are just amazing to me!

It was over 370 feet tall!! And it fell in
1991.

A peaceful drive down the Avenue of the Giants.

After Founders Grove we continued on to the visitor's center, which miraculously was open! The campground right next door smelled wonderfully of campfire smoke to add to the ambiance. We looked around the museum and bought some postcards.

This is the "Travel-Log", which was my
favorite part of the museum.

A Travel-Log information poster. The
"Longest Piece of Hewn Redwood in the
World" was turned into a motor home
that his guy drove around to show off.

Nurse log facts - so amazing!
Estimated number of species in fallen logs:
Invertebrates: 3228
Birds and mammals: 178
All plants, including mosses, lichens and fungi: 700

Back to the travel log - a peek in the back
door.

Another informational poster about Kellogg
and his Travel-Log.

Our next stop in Humboldt was Rockefeller Grove. We ate lunch in the parking lot and then wandered around the 0.7 mile loop (I love that it's so easy to convince everyone to hike a less-than-a-mile loop after our 6 miles on Monday, even if we do four or five of them in a day!) Apparently John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated a million dollars to help save this grove in 1931 and earned his name to be put on it, I say!

Sam thought it was fun to figure out which
big chunks were cut out of which fallen
logs to allow the trail to pass through.

The last grove we visited in Humboldt was the Big Trees Area. (You may remember that we already saw "Big Tree" in Prairie Creek yesterday - their naming scheme gets really confusing really quick!) We wanted to peek at Tall Tree and Giant Tree while we were here, and luckily we were able to see both, even without the seasonal footbridge being in place and without getting our feet wet crossing Bull Creek. How? We crossed like the rangers did on the fallen redwood across the water. It was by far the most stable and widest log bridge I have ever walked across!

Hard to read this sign, but it's 359 feet tall
and 42 feet around and 13.4 feet across.

Yeah, it's pretty tall!

I spy Cal and Sam walking the length of 
this fallen tree way off into the distance.

One of those huge ones is Giant Tree, across the creek.

No bridge? No problem!

363 feet tall, 53.2 feet circumference, 62 feet
average crown spread. Whoa nelly!
But it's not the tallest one out there anymore!

A giant hug for Giant Tree.

Back we go across the bridge.

Just a funny side note here: I had to wear my hat
backwards a lot in these forests because I just
couldn't see high enough when my brim was facing
forwards!

After two and a half days of tromping through forests to gawk at huge trees, we figured it was about time to give the kids what they were most looking forward to: a swim in the hotel pool. We timed it just right to get back to the hotel in Eureka between check-out and check-in and had the pool entirely to ourselves for over an hour! The kids had a blast and we all got good and pruney. And we were able to watch it finally click for Cal in her attempts to swim across the pool without touching the bottom. She was so excited and officially swam 15 laps!

bonus video!

"swimming champ!"

We still had a lot of daylight left after our swim, that we ate an early dinner/hefty snack back in our room while we got dried off and then headed out to explore Sequoia Park Forest and Garden right there in town. The playground wasn't that special, but we loved our walk down the hill through the grove to the duck pond and then back up. Seriously legit city park!

A really terrible picture of some really
cute baby ducks (not mallards!).

We hiked back up to our car through
Rhododendron Glen - and some were
blooming!

Next, we wandered around Old Town down by the bay. Most of the shops were closed, but it was fun to window shop and peek at the great architecture, too.

One of two bookstores we saw on
our wanderings.

Star Wars Day on the brain. ;)

Bookstore #2: Booklegger Used Books.

We finished off our evening with a stop at Winco (the craziest maze of a store I've ever been in, and it didn't help that I went in the exit and couldn't get a cart and couldn't find the entrance from inside so I carried all our groceries in my arms) to refresh our grocery stash and then back to the hotel to rest up for another day!