Eat Well; Travel Often: Day 26

Day 26: 6/12/15 (Portland to Redwood National Park)

352 miles

Once again we couldn’t get our butts out of bed before 9am. We had to check out of the apartment by 11am so we quickly showered and gathered our things. We enjoyed the loaded fried dough doughnut for breakfast – nothing like a good sugar high in the morning. As we were walking out, we finally met the couple whose house we’d been staying at the last few days – they were not Asian like we had thought, but they seemed nice. On the drive out, we checked for hotdogs once last time and they weren’t there! We couldn’t figure out how those people have stayed in business.

The drive through Oregon was one of the better drives we’ve had since being east of the Mississippi. There were actually trees and elevation, but without the winding, crazy mountain roads. We made it to the most northern redwood state park shortly after crossing the California border. We drove to a campground on the outskirts of the park hoping to find a campsite and sure enough, we did! We set up our tent and gathered some wood and then set out for the Jedidiah Smith State Park. This park is mainly for hiking, but there is one scenic road that drives right through the thick of the forest. It was a two-way road that was more so the size of a one-way. At times we would drive between two massive trees just wide enough for one car hoping there wasn’t someone coming from the other side. A few miles in, we pulled over to hike to a small grove of redwoods. Along the trail was a fallen redwood that had a slice taken out of the middle to maintain a walkable pathway. Many people had marked the tree with initials and names, so we decided to hop on the bandwagon. Rico pulled out his handy-dandy Swiss army knife and began digging away. Now our love is eternal in a dead tree – sounds promising.

After walking around the rest of the grove we made our way back to camp, but not before stopping in to get some beer! We picked up a 6-pack of Newcastle and couldn’t help but grab some marshmallows, cookies, Reeses, and sausages for the campfire. Right when we got back, we cracked some beers and lit up the campfire. We had a few leftover sandwiches from Portland so we warmed those up for an appetizer and then we roasted some sausages on our very own whittled sticks. For dessert we made some “tired of s’mores” which is made with chocolate chip cookies instead of graham crackers and Reeses instead of a Hershey bar – they are delicious (Thanks Holly for the recipe)! Finally, we couldn’t take the smoke from the fire any longer so we put it out and headed to bed. For the first time since leaving, we didn’t use the rain fly for the tent since the weather was so nice and warm. We’re hoping that the rest of our nights camping are like this.