Day 8 on the Portland Pilgrimage

Ah, the last day on the road....god, I'll be happy to get home. I've had such a good time on this road trip, but 8 days is a long time to be living out of a suitcase. Mom and I decided to make a few more stops before going home, so we continued our sojourn up The Redwood Highway (Highway 101) and drove through elk territory. There are several herds that graze in the large fields around the California/ Oregon border, but this is the largest herd that gathers here. This was really neat; I've never been so close to a wild elk before, and as you can see from the pictures, they were only about 10 feet away from the car!


Here was stop number two. Mom has always wanted to stop at the Trees of Mystery, but has always been traveling with some road Nazi who never let her. So, since we weren't in any rush, we decided to be tourists and stop at the giant Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox!


Heehee....they made Babe anatomically correct...heeheehee....

Here is the Native American Museum that was part of the Trees of Mystery attraction, and both Mom and I were dumbfounded at the quality of the exhibits. I mean, full private collections and E.S. Curtis original dugerrotypes, among other things. It was surprisingly impressive.


Here are some various texture photographs of the trail.





Here are some shots of the massive, awe-inspiring redwoods. I only wish I had the skill and equipment to do justice to these magnificent forests.




Here are some of the "anomaly trees" that we saw. This sign was so matter-of-fact, I though it was hilarious. Click on it and see if you can read it....

I'm bummed with how this photo turned out, but this is the root structure of a tree that had fallen over. The top was taller than me and spanned about one and a half arm lengths across (and that was a small one!)

This tree was really impressive. It was called the Family Tree and actually has twelve seperate small trees growing on it's limbs. It was very cool...

Here is the Cathedral Tree, which was actually many trees grown together to make an alcove. Several couples a year get married here, then post a sign on the top of the observation trail to mark the date.


Kinda cheesy, but appropriate for a wedding, I thought.

Here is The Brotherhood Tree, which was so big that I couldn't get the whole base of the tree in the view finder of my camera. I did get Mom in her fabulous orange rain smock though....


And at the top of the ancient walking trail, here is the very modern gondola service that takes you up, up, and away right to the very top of the mountain to an observation deck.

Here's how Mom felt about being thousands of feet in the air....

Oh, and here was the view from the very high observation deck. It was beautiful and totally worth the spectacular ride. We got there just in time to see the view before the fog started to roll in. We were so high up, that we could see the ocean (see that small island in the distance)!


Here are some chainsaw carvings done by one of the original owners of the trail. There was a whole series of Paul Bunyan's upbringing.

...and Sourdough Sam...

Here is the seagull who eyed us furiously from the hood of my truck while we ate lunch in the Safeway parking lot. The little mongrel was waiting us out for scraps.

Here are several shots of the very picturesque drive.