Redwoods and Rain

This was my fourth visit to the Redwoods and it was by far the most relaxed. We had met up with our friends just south after two long days of driving from the Arizona/New Mexico border where we’d been monitoring the wildfire in our town and now that we were all settled in our campsites we were happy to unwind a bit. The day of our arrival was partly sunny but the remainder of our time it was raining 90% of the time, and downright storming for some of it: Roads (and trails) were closed throughout the Redwood State and National Parks, flooding was rampant, and there were threats of mudslides on Route 101 at times. But none of the six of us seemed to mind too much, making the best of the hours when the rain was lighter, basking in the fleeting moments of blue sky that appeared overhead, heading to the nearest beach at every sunny moment to let the dogs run around, and driving up to Crescent City to enjoy a leisurely lunch at SeaQuake Brewing on the afternoon that felt like we were being pummeled by gale force winds. Shoutout to them for a fantastically subtle chocolate porter that was actually vegan by the way. All in all, we saw a lot of big trees and multiple lovely beaches so we didn’t miss much besides some sunshine.