Road Trip - Day Seven

Monday was spent exploring the Redwood forests in Northern California. This area is absolutely amazing. The scenery is so dramatic and beautiful with the beaches and rocky cliffs, not to mention the giant trees.

We did an eight mile hike today into the redwood forest. As you all know, I am mortified of bears. The hike started out with the trail winding through a huge area covered with blackberry bushes. It is autumn, so the bears are fattening up and getting ready to hibernate. What do bears like to eat in order to fatten up? BLACKBERRIES! I was so scared and immediately wanted to turn back and sit safely inside the RV. The Husband managed to convince me to press on.
The forest was just indescribable. The trees were so huge, and they weren't the only thing. The ferns were enormous as well as everything else. Even the clover were the size of my palm. It was like walking through some primordial forest. Very surreal.
THEN we crossed a bridge and on the other side was a bright yellow sign posted. It was dated the 12th of September and was an announcement that mountain lions had recently been in the area and to be careful. It talked about how to deal with one if it attacked. Needless to say, I was scared to death. For some crazy reason, I continued on the trail. We found all sorts of scat and were sadly unable to identify it. (I am going to have to get a scat identification book) In my head, the poo was that of a giant black bear/mountain lion hybrid that fed on the blood of short blondes.
In the end, the hike was uneventful in the area of predatory animals. We did see some really cool wildlife. There was an enormous herd of elk. The Husband counted around 50 plus. The big daddy elk had gigantic antlers and could be identified from really far away. The elk saw us, but didn't pay much attention. We also saw a bazillion little tiny frogs in the dry riverbed. AND, I saw a little brown snake with a stripe.

All in all, it was a cool hike and we had a lot of fun. The Husband is basically a genius at getting me distracted from worrying about my impending violent death and getting me to talk about random things.
After the hike, we drove up to a camping area right on the water. We sat watching the sunset and listening to California Sea Lions barking and swimming around in the water.