We drove to Davis, CA to stay for a few days with my California Grandma, Helen, who we hadn’t seen in awhile. It was very nice to see her again. Little Kid and I had a great time with Helen’s giant collection of flutes.

We also celebrated the first few nights of Chanukah at Grandma Helen’s house. Pa made lots of super delicious latkes.

One day, Grandma Helen gave us a tour of Sacramento. We saw the capitol of California, as well as the Moon Tree, a tree that, as a seedling, had been brought to the moon and exposed to its elements before being planted in a redwood grove beside the capitol.

We stayed for a few days at Samuel P. Taylor State Park, in Marin County, to explore San Francisco. Since we are not really city people, we only spent one day in the city. We drove the Jetta to Sausalito, which is across the bay from San Francisco, parked the car, and rode a bus to a stop near the Golden Gate Bridge. To get to the bridge, we had to walk next to a highway and climb over barriers. Then, we walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge, with its huge towers and cables, was very beautiful.

When we got to the other side of the bridge, we had a picnic on a bench with views of of the Golden Gate Bridge before taking a city bus to the other side of town. Then we walked through Fisherman’s Wharf to the ferry terminal, and took an extremely fast small ferry at sunset back to Sausalito. From there, we drove home, tired from our long but fun day.

We stayed a few days at Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, near Cresent City, CA, to see the ancient redwood trees there. They were up to 15 feet in diameter, up to 350 feet tall, and up to 2000 years old. One day, we drove to Stout Grove, a redwood grove, on a narrow dirt road that winded between redwoods. And even though it was a two lane road, the road was often hardly big enough for one car, because the gaps between the trees were so small. We parked in the tiny parking lot, and then we hiked through the foggy forest, staring in awe at the massive trees that stood over us. The forest was very magical and mysterious, it was the kind of place that you would expect to see Sasquatch or a staircase to another world.

When we left Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, we drove the Avenue of the Giants, a road lined with huge redwoods. It looked a lot like Stout Grove, even though we were almost two hours away from there. We stopped to see the Immortal Tree, a giant thousand year old tree that had survived lightning, fire, axes, floods, and more. We also saw a 20 foot room that had been carved out underneath a tree. After that, we did a short hike, and saw more giant trees. We saw one tree that had been hollowed into an arch by fire. We could walk right through it, but somehow the tree was still alive.

Our last stop in Oregon was Harris Beach State Park, ten miles from the California border, a cliff top campground where we spent almost a week. Below the campground was a sand beach, with tide pools right by it. Huge waves crashed against the sea stacks that were everywhere. We had amazing weather there, it was so warm that we put on bathing suits and ran in the waves.

Because our camp site was right next to the campground playground, Little Kid and I spent most of our time playing with other kids there. We had lots of fun climbing, sliding, and playing tag.

We also celebrated Thanksgiving. We had very a delicious dinner. Of course, the meal took more than an hour to make, and less than fifteen minutes to eat.

One day, we went grocery shopping at Fred Meyer, where they had a play area where you could leave your kid while you shopped. Little Kid saw it, and begged to go there. So we went back there a few days later so Little Kid could go to the play area. Little Kid had an awesome time, and didn’t even want to leave.

We had a great time in Oregon, and we are sad to leave, but we are excited to go to California.

We spent about a week at Cape Blanco State Park, on the southern Oregon coast. Our campground was on top of a tall cliff that loomed over the kelp covered sand beach. Pa, Little Kid and I had fun trying to escape after tying each other up with kelp.

One afternoon, Pa and I walked down to where the beach ended at a rock headland. We found a small sea cave, but the tide was still pretty high, and we didn’t want to get wet, so we didn’t explore much around there. But when Ma and I went back there later that day, it was low tide. There were huge tide pools everywhere, filled with blue and pink anemones and big orange star fish. When we went to the cave, we saw there was another one right next to it. When I went into the second cave, a small bird flew out. Ma was very freaked out.

While we were at Cape Blanco, we went gold panning at the mouth of the Sixes River. We didn’t find any gold, but we saw lots of seals.