ROAD TREK: Paul Bunyan and the trees of mystery

EarthDate: 2014 July 6th,
Location: Redwoods national forest

Ruh-roh gang! A mystery is afoot!

The plan for today was to visit the <scary voice>trees of mystery</scary voice>. What precisely the mystery is ...... well I have been, and I am still not sure. Maybe therein lies the mystery.

We broke out the camping kitchen set for breakfast this morning, and had spam and eggs for breakfast. Then we were off:

Trees of mystery: home to Paul Bunyan and his blue ox Babe

Today was the day I failed my American folklore quiz. From my time in the states, I had heard of Paul Bunyan before but I had thought of his home as being set in Minnesota. I had not thought he was a west coast (and even a California) character. I actually learned very little about Bunyan from the trip, but from pursuing his wikipedia page [which naturally makes me an expert on the subject ....] it seems that his actual location is just "North American" logging. He appears in as a character in children's books, and dates back to 1916.

The real appeal of the trees of mystery was not the touristy statues, or the gift shop, but the redwoods. Although the giftshop was rather special, as it had a cup that would be quite the talk of the faculty retreat and a pinecone that a certain young Master Berthel would quite enjoy

For young master Berthel ... the largest pinecone I have ever seen!

For the faculty retreat..... keeping it classy

The redwoods were quite spectacular. We went on a short self-guided hike around some very strange looking trees (I think my favorite was the "Family tree" which had other trees growing on its branches).

Part of the attraction was a gondola that went up about half a mile called Sky Tram. This was reminiscent of the ride I took last year through in Palm Springs for my birthday. Here are a couple of shots from Sky Tram:

The passing gondola

View from the top

After this, we made our way back down, and headed out to an internet cafe (where I am typing this blog note). Tomorrow we are off to the lighthouse at Battery point, and then off to Ashland, Oregon.

A couple of other pictures from Trees of Mystery