I’d have to admit that, except for the excellent car wash there, I wasn’t terribly impressed with Eureka, California.  But to take the positive bit first, a thorough scrubbing by four guys with soft brushes, including a wheel treatment, then the mechanical wash, and finally a hand dry and polish by two more guys, really worked wonders for Baby Blue!  Ten thousand miles of road dirt and an extensive bug collection were washed away, and it feels like a new truck again!

But aside from that, Eureka turned out to be a place where I was just too conspicuous.  The car was too new and too different, and I was just a bit too obviously not from around there.  I was hit up for cash twice, the second time while sitting in my car, and the guy blocked my door open until I gave him something.  Probably not dangerous, but not something I really want to experience often either.  Then when I tried to spend the night in a Walmart parking lot, as I’ve been accustomed to doing, I ended up with two guys circling my car around midnight, and one taking pictures into the front window.  That just did it for me, so I jumped into the driver’s seat and took off, drove a couple of hours down the highway, and spent the night in a nice busy truckers’ rest stop.  But all things considered, it’s fairly impressive that this was the first night in two months that I’ve felt at all uncomfortable in my situation and had to move.

In the morning, though, I discovered that my midnight drive had put me in the middle of a fairy land!  I had heard of the Avenue of Giants, but really didn’t know much about it, and it wasn’t on my radar for this trip at all.  But since I was already in the middle of it I thought I’d check it out.  It’s one of those roads off the main highways that’s labeled a “scenic byway,” but that has to be the understatement of the century in this case.  The FJ isn’t a small vehicle, but it looked like a toy in this forest!

Some logging took place in this area originally, but thankfully people realized that this was far too valuable to just cut up.  I understand that Rockefeller had a fair bit to do with preserving the forest.  It’s just remarkable to be driving along and come across a stump like this.

The Humboldt Redwoods State Park is where most of the big trees are located, and where I spent most of my time.  The Avenue of the Giants winds its way through groves of trees for miles, and even at noon it’s like twilight under the high canopy.

There are plenty of places to get out of the car and go hiking, though, and I particularly liked the Founder’s Grove.  As you can see from this next picture, in spite of their massive height, redwoods do not have a tap root, and their roots are actually quite shallow, although they spread quite wide.  Wet and windy weather can bring down even the largest of trees when the ground around them gets saturated, and tree falls apparently happen fairly regularly.  See if you can find me at the base of the roots below…

In places, the trails are cut right through the fallen trees, or follow along their massive trunks.

In the Founder’s Grove there’s a fallen tree called the Dyerville Giant that came crashing down in 1991, when it was the tallest tree in the park.  Although no one was nearby to see it fall, one local who heard the impact from a distance thought that there had been a train crash!  The Dyerville Giant was 362 ft tall, and 17 ft in diameter when it fell, and was believed to be about 2,000 years old.  In the picture of it below, look for the small man in the green shirt just left of center, walking along it’s trunk.

The Founders’ Tree in the grove honors the members of the Save the Redwoods League that worked to protect this forest, and although it’s not the biggest tree there, it’s certainly quite impressive (me for scale).

But when I stopped at the visitor center, they told me to be sure not to miss the “big tree area,” which seemed like a bit of a joke under the circumstances, because weren’t they all just a little on the massive side??  But I took the side trip recommended, and so help me, the trees got bigger!  I’m not sure if it was in the Founder’s Grove, or driving along the road below, when I suddenly realized that I couldn’t leave, that this was some kind of magical fairy land, and I just needed — needed! — to spend more time here.  That’s not a matchbox car you’re seeing, that’s the full-sized FJ!

And what did they man by “big” trees?  Well, this is just called The Giant.  It’s 363 feet high, 53 feet in circumference, with an average crown span of 62 feet, and in 1991 it was largest redwood in the nation, although I believe I heard that it’s since been surpassed.  But the numbers mean nothing really.  Just look at this…

Well, if you’re going to be a tree hugger, that’s the tree to hug!  Here’s a confession — I have about ten of these shots with me in all different positions — it was just that much fun to be near something so massive!  The Dyerville Giant that I mentioned earlier would have been about this size when it fell.

For some reason, there seemed to be a few trees with burned out centers, although I never heard, or thought to ask why.  Wounded, but still standing stong, these often had the most unusual shapes.

As I mentioned, I decided that I needed to spend more time with these giants, and so arranged to camp for two nights in a grove near the visitor’s center.  It’s nearly impossible for me to describe the atmosphere of the place, this is one that you just have to visit yourself to experience, but I’ll try to give you some idea of my impressions.  First of all, peace and silence.  Yes, there were other people there, and there were cars on the main road, but none of that mattered.  The forest seemed to absorb sound and fill the ears with a kind of white noise as the breeze rustled through the canopy so far above.  Or maybe it was the dappled twilight on the forest floor — you know that pensive peaceful feeling you get at nightfall? That feeling was never really absent here.

There’s a temptation to say that I felt tiny, like an ant among blades of grass — but I didn’t really.  The trees were indeed massive, but I hadn’t changed.  Or that the incredible age of these trees put time into perspective — but that didn’t really happen for me either.  The span of my own existence remains the same.  For me, I think I was most struck by the overwhelming simplicity of what I was seeing.  These were just trees.  Despite their size and their age, their only purpose, only reason for being, was to be trees.  They don’t need or want to be anything else, and they seek no forged meaning from us.  Somehow my decision to give up on living a life that held no meaning for me, to stop climbing ladders constructed by others, made more sense here.  The trees, they get me.  All I need to be is me.

So I spent two full days and another morning here, lying on my back watching the trees sway gently in the breeze, each swing sweeping across the sky.  I drank lots of tea and coffee.  I read a lot, and went for hikes, and caught up on my blogging.  I just listened to the forest and stopped thinking so much for a while.

On my final morning, while drinking my coffee, I found myself surrounded by a flock of preternaturally intelligent little pterosaurs, that I’m informed are called Steller’s Jays.  I’m not sure what it was about them, but they seemed to be keeping a distrustful eye on me, and the feeling was entirely mutual….

It was a wonderful place to escape to and recharge for a few days.  I think I could spend a week there.  I think I could spend a lifetime there.

Go. You won’t be disappointed, I promise.