Today we drove through the coast, went as far South as Trinidad, had lunch there, then stopped to see Elk on the way back, and checked out the Fern Canyon which was pretty cool.
We had a regular Saturday morning kind of morning, but the main difference is that I woke up “much later” than usual. hahahah… Usual is 5:50-6am, even without the alarm clock, because I get back pain and it wakes me up, and rolling around doesn’t help. I get that from time to time, so it’s just something I manage. At home, we have a sleep number bed, so I change the settings (make it firmer or softer) and it helps for a while, until the cycle starts over. Here, we just got the new mattress and I’ve been sleeping great! Knock on wood. It’s only been 3 nights, but no back pain at all so far, so today I woke up around 7:30am.
I just get my coffee made, get the computer and check emails, news, work on posts, post something if I have it ready, etc. I had the TV on today with no sound, so I could see the news and just follow along. Bella woke up soon after, then so did Bia. They both went on their electronics tight away.
Bia made some eggs for both of them too. I wanted to leave to check out the area around 10-11am, so little by little I had them get changed, eat breakfast, etc. Carol woke up maybe an hour after me, and got her coffee and started working on wrapping up the videos she had finalized.
When I was done with what I wanted to do, I started getting ready to go. I got everyone’s hiking shoes ready and lined up outside, got the truck ready, got the girls to finish getting ready and out. Carol was putting some final touches on the video yet, so eventually I took the girls with me and went to the gas station to fill up before we left. There’s a gas station right outside our campground, so it’s like less than a minute away. Now, since we left Wisconsin on our trip, I never paid more than $2.60 for diesel. I think in Wisconsin it was around 2, then in the Dakotas early on it was under 2, then as I moved West, in Montana it was low to mid 2s… Here in California, first time I fill up and it was $3.57! Daaaammmm! $80 to fill up. I had not paid that much since Gas was 4, and that was to fill up Carol’s SUV. Anyway, tid bit to show how our leg of the trip in California is going to be expensive. Anyway….
We got back and Carol was ready to go. Our plan was to drive to Humboldt Lagoon Park, check it out and go from there. The drive is about an hour, but it’s on highway 101, so it’s super pretty, with lots of awesome view of the ocean, and plenty of driving through the Redwoods forests and some Elk areas too. We had a nice, uneventful, drive to the Lagoons.
The area is quite interesting, it is lagoons formed by the ocean when the tide is high, so you end up with the ocean and the waves, the an area of sand that is a little higher than both sides, and on the other side you have the lagoon. There was one that had fresh water in another area, but it was a bit further from the ocean. We stopped at the main parking area and went down. It was quite windy and a bit cold by the water, so the girls went back to the car.
The beach there was very pretty, with big rocks near the shore where the very strong waves would crash and create big sprays of water. That view was quite amazing, to look into the direction of the sun, see it reflect in the water and have waves crashing on the rocks, all at the same time.
Carol and I walked around, took some pictures, enjoyed the place, checked out some of the rocks that rolled in with the waves. The waves were so strong there, and one after the other, non stop, that there were signs posted that surfing there was prohibited. That beating around of the waves on stones, make them very smooth, so pretty much all the little rocks that Carol picked up were quite smooth. When we arrived, the girls had said they were hungry, so Carol found a place to eat in Trinidad, which is another 20 miles south from where we were, so we went there.
Trinidad is a very small town from what we could see, and the little streets and cafes gave me the feeling of some areas in Cape Cod. It’s also not too easy to find a spot right by the restaurant for a big truck, so I dropped Carol and the girls off, and drove around to find parking. I ended up parking back on the main road, just 3 blocks away, so not too bad after all. We had a 40 minute wait to get seated as the restaurant was operating at 50% capacity (every other table only), so we headed towards the shore. It’s a breathtaking view from up there. The Town area we were in is at the top of the hill, and the beach is below and steep. The view was amazing. There was a path nearby to go down, so we started walking there. Bia still had her sandals on as we were going down, so she was not moving fast.
Carol found berries on the trail, so she was not moving fast. So those two stayed behind together, and just found a spot with lots of berries and hung out there while Bella and I went down to the beach.
The path down there is quite steep, but the views are pretty awesome. Bella and I went all the way down, and walked around the beach area a bit.
There was not a lot to explore down there, small beach area, mainly rocks as I think that area is not even walkable when the tide is high. We went back up, and Carol and Bia were still getting berries. Hahahah. We walked back to the restaurant and waited another 20 minutes to be seated. Carol picked the place because she saw crab eggs Benedict in the menu. By time we were seated it was 2pm, so guess that? They were not serving breakfast! And she didn’t get to order her eggs Benedict. The place was called something eatery, and was pretty good. Service was good and food was good.
We got Oysters to start as the girls wanted to try them again. Neither of them had it, they got close to them, and put their lips on the water and decided it was not for them. So, Carol and I had 3 each :).
I got a local Hazy IPA craft beer, Carol got a Mimosa and the girls got juice. Carol ended up getting Mussels for lunch, I got the special of the day Jalapeño Burger and the girls got Mac and Cheese.
All the food was good, and gone pretty quick :).
The place had locally made fudge and free tastings, so before we left we each tried some fudge and Carol got some to go. We had a nice time at lunch, just chatting and laughing. While we had lunch Carol also had a booklet she was finding stuff to see in the area, so she decided we should drive towards the Elk Prairie, where Elk hang out, and then Fern Canyon.
It was about 20 minutes to get to the Elk Prairie area, and we didn’t even have to get out of the car. Once we got to the area, right on hwy101, we saw some Elk trying to cross the road, so I pulled to the side of the road. There were many Elk nearby, all grazing, the bull Elks were there too. Carol got a nice shot of the bull Elk crossing the road right in front of us, and I got some pictures too. We got lucky and didn’t really have to go to any other special spot to see them, so from there we went to the Fern Canyon place.
To get there, we kept going North on 101 and just knew we had to turn into Davison Road. When we saw the sign for that, we turn in. The road goes unpaved right away, and goes into the mountain, thick forest and steep uphill. You drive on that, then down, for about 5 miles. Then you get to the beach on the other side. It’s very pretty, awesome views of the Ocean from there. To get to the Fern Canyon you need to drive another 3 miles or so parallel to the beach, but right in front of it. At some point the road gets a bit more rough, and you even cross some creeks with about a foot of water running, so not quite advised for low clearance vehicles. It was actually fun to go through those with the truck hahaha. Once we got to the parking lot, we went to use the restrooms first. I went first and the smell there was awful, but I was quick. I knew the girls would not use it, so as soon as Bia got in, she came right back out almost gaging hahahahahah… They gave up on going there and saved it for later.
We got on the trail, and within a minute we were at the Fern Canyon. It’s pretty cool, and very pretty.
Basically what the name says, it’s a Canyon where both side walls are all covered with Ferns.
We had a great time hiking there, as most of the path had water we had to cross, so we needed to find spots to step in, or balance on logs, it was fun. I’m very glad, again, that we have these waterproof hiking shoes.
Many times it was easier to step on rocks that were under water just a bit, so the shoes did get water on the outside, but nothing inside.
The area has a lot of Ferns and other plants as well. It also has some bigger trees that fell, all mixed in, so it’s a pretty cool hike.
Some smaller trees and some pretty big trees sometimes helped cross or made it harder.
After we walked for maybe a mile into the Canyon, we decided it was time to go. On the way back we were going pretty fast, so we made it back in no time, and caught some nice views of the sun setting through the forest.
After that we drove back home. Kids wanted to watch some TV, so they got ready super fast after we ate, and we watched some TV. Nice day and very cool to do something different like this Canyon, everyone loved it.