Day 4

This was the first time I had ever seen redwoods. I had remarked earlier “the redwoods make living here seem pleasant”, however, that was before I knew that Poison Oak grew everywhere. They are, unfortunately, entwined—literally. Poison Oak can grow as a vine up the redwoods. For those of you who don’t know, Redwoods are like silent blue whales that don’t move. But they do breathe. Their exhalations are the winds in the canopy. These coast redwoods are known for their height, in fact they are the tallest trees in the world! They are not the biggest in total mass; that honour belongs to their cousins the Giant Sequoias in the California mountains to the south. The Coast Redwoods are so tall that you can’t even see their tops because of the other trees. The tallest tree we saw was 359.3 ft tall (110 m). But since you couldn’t see their tops, it was hard to see their height--what was really inspiring was their girth. The medium sized ones took several people to wrap around the trunk. You could comfortably live in the trunk of the biggest ones. Even with the Poison Oak the redwood forests are the most awe inspiring that I have seen.

In the late afternoon we arrived at Larry’s, Erica’s boyfriend, house. Medjula and I got our own little cabin. We fell asleep quickly to dreams of huge trees…