See those storm clouds rolling in?
We have seen many examples of God’s provision on this trip! Just tonight we stopped to eat at a Marie Calendars and I decided to take my laptop in to look at pictures (via Mac instant slide shows) while we waited for our food and noticed (in honor of Branden) that there was a local unsecured high speed wireless network! (that’s a good thing) I was able to check my e-mail at dinner! (maybe not a good thing) Anyway, by the end of dinner it was pouring rain – and we found out our destination was 2.5 hours away, not the one hour we thought, and that there was no lodging in the town where we were planning to stop and look for a place to spend the night… so I followed the wireless connection next door, and here we are at Best Western! It has rained a lot on this trip, but God has been gracious – it must rain (this area is so lush and green) – but rain has not ruined a day, it always seem to rain either when it doesn’t matter, or when it actually makes the view better. We were most grateful to God that the day we went on the boat trip, it only rained at the very beginning, and as we were floating back into port!
The smaller sign says “End County Maintained Roads” – My kind of road!
Today we began our California Adventure (no intended reference to the lame amusement park by the same name). We traveled the coast via obscure coastal roads Sara found on the Internet. (I build the web, Sara actually uses it)
Driving was a ton of fun! So was taking pictures at the same time!
We headed into Sherwood Forest, er, Redwood Forest, but again, using less known roads that Sara researched online. We drove for miles and miles through winding back roads and saw almost no other cars. Everything was going great until we came across a massive tree that had blocked the road. In all the excitement, I forgot to take a picture of it in the road, but after I used my light saber to cut it in half, Sara snapped a picture of me using my Jedi powers to summon the Force and push the now-severed halves of the tree off the road…
As Yoda said, “Size matters not.”
After the car was through, we examined the tree, turns out the tree was hollow. In the picture above the right side was over 50-70 feet long, and looking down through it you could just make out light at the very bottom down the steep hill. Up through the left side was a much larger hole, so I climbed up and looked down through it…
Now that’s a big tree!
It’s impossible to capture the size of these trees in one picture, you’d need a fish-eye lense (boy, I wished I had one of those today!) But we tried…
In touch with our inner tree, literally!
The Trees Declare the Glory of God!
In our ever-exciting pursuit of wild animals, today proved to be more exciting – no google images needed! The first creature was a mouse – don’t laugh – this was the coolest little mouse. He was FAST and scurried around like he had just drank a Mountain Dew!!! Don’t believe me? Check out this 5MB video clip of him running around the road… and when this video ends you’ll see he ran into the brush, so I stopped filming, but then he ran right back out and all over the road again, it was the funniest thing. I followed him around the roadway for almost five minutes, it was hysterical. He was so fast all the pictures i took were a blurr! Here’s the best one:
This little dude COULD MOVE!
Next we ran into the WEIRDEST LOOKING bird – no, not literally, but if you think you know what this is, post a comment and tell me. (Retta?!?!?) I KNOW what it is, just wondering if any of YOU know what it is!
No relation to Big Bird of Seseme Street!
Then we spotted some Elk – in several different places actually, over 25 total! These things are big, and if you’ve heard my “Moose Story from Alaska” you’ll understand why I stayed in the car to take these pictures…
Just a few of Santa’s Elks… or something like that.
If you haven’t heard my “Moose Story from Alaska” you can always ask me about it, but let’s just say, the Moose in Alaska don’t hide behind warning signs like these elk do…
“Danger?!” Oh, I thought it said “Ranger” Oh, well.
As we left Redwood National Forest I FINALLY DID GET TO SEE A BEAR - FOUR in fact! And this is FOR REAL! No google images – in fact, I set my camera on timer and jumped up on one and road him like a bull! (Sara was hiding safely in the car)
OK, so it was a bridge statue (2 on each end of the bridge)
But it was real, just a Golden Bear. (Don’t tell Moses!)
Eventually, we were back driving alone the coast again. Did I mention it is beautiful? Did I mention that it is breathtakingly spectacular? You have GOT to plan a vacation out here!
I can fly! I can fly! (well, I can flap my arms like a goof ball)
I love birds, tormenting them that is. This is a vacation tradition, me running into the birds waving my arms like a lunatic. Sara even reminded me today, “Karl, aren’t you going to run and make all the birds fly?”
By popular demand, RED WOODS PHOTO GALLERY is NOW LIVE! Check it out, and it’ll almost be like you were there!AND IF YOU ARE READING THIS – leave a comment so I know someone is reading these posts. 
