Better Together: California Roadtrip part 1

Day 1
We woke up early and headed out to our adventure around 6 am!We used Corbin as an alarm and we originally expected him to wake up around 5, so we got a bit of a late start. We got the kids loaded into the car and started our trip with the tradition of having donuts for breakfast! Brylianna always picks the donuts with the most sprinkles on.We had about and 11 hour drive to do today and it was not the prettiest drive. We drove to Klamath Falls. Thank goodness Pat's mom got Brylianna a cute little pink dvd player for the ride as a gift. It was awesome. Pat and I entertained ourselves with mad libs, my favorite mad libs was one called how we met :) It was cracking us up.
We survived the trip and the kids slept a lot of the way. We got to Klamath Falls, Oregon and ate at a cute little place called Elmers. It was delicious, and there was a cute older couple that told us we had a cute little family. It was kinda windy and cold and they told us that's how it usually is in that town. We went back to our hotel and went swimming at an indoor pool they had, to try to wear the kids out before bedtime, but it was kinda cold so we went back to our room and let them play in the tub. The funny thing about parenting is that when you are trying to wear your kids out, you usually get more worn out though right?! We ate some deluxe tv microwavable dinners and went to bed.
Day 2
We woke up in Oregon and headed out to Northern California. We took a picture by the Welcome to California sign and it was raining. We drove to Crescent city California. On the way there we went by a beautiful river that was the most gorgeous blue color, pictures don't even do it justice, but it was pretty. We stopped and grabbed something to eat in a drive through and we paused Brylianna's movie and by the time we turned around to give her her food, she had fallen asleep. Then we decided to explore some of the Redwood National Park. It was so neat and pretty and cool driving too, the trees started getting bigger and bigger and more dense. We went to the Jedidiah Smith park area ( I think that's what it was called) and did two shorter hikes since it was already late into the day. They were both around a mile. It was so nice to be out of the car.
I think one we did was a big trees trail and it was neat. Brylianna would randomly point to the biggest tree in sight and ask if she could go push it over, so Pat would go over and let her try to push it over and she would grunt and then say, it's too hard! It was pretty funny. The kids were good sports in their Poco carriers. It even rained on us, and Corbin fell asleep at the end.
Then we drove back to our hotel and went to bed.
Day 3
We woke up in our hotel and it was right across from a marina/harbor. We could hear the sea lions from our hotel. We were trying to explain to Brylianna how we could hear the sea lions and then we went down to breakfast and she told the lady there that we were going to go see some tigers haha
Then we packed up and headed to another part of the Redwoods called Prairie Creek. We embarked on a long hike. It ended up being a lot longer than we originally thought it would be and I was carrying Corbin ( about 25-30 pounds) and Pat was carrying Brylianna ( about 40 pounds) with some food and water etc. It was absolutely majestic and magical and beautiful. The trees are so giant you feel tiny, and there was a light mist throughout the forest a lot of times, and there was a blanket of beautiful green ferns all along the forest floor the whole way pretty much. The trail we went on had tons of bridges and lots of stairs and trees to climb over and under all along the way. There was some difference in mileage on almost every sign we saw so it was difficult to know how far we really hiked. Our hike led to a world famous place called Fern canyon. It was in a river bed and the water was a bit deeper and colder than we had planned on, and we had to cross it to get to the picnic area. Pat found a bunch of logs in the rivet that he could jump across no problem, even with Brylianna on his back. But with my short legs and Corbin on my back I was hesitant to go that way, so I took off my shoes to carry them and found a good walking stick and waded through the water. It was super freezing cold and I may have been entirely way to dramatic about the whole thing, but hey after hiking about 5 miles and not wanting to get my shoes wet for the long hike back, it was a big deal lol Brylianna was super cute and encouraged me :) We couldn't quite go around the bend as far as I wanted to get the full effect of being in a canyon with ferns covering the walls 30 feet on either side, so maybe one day we will have to go back when it is later in the year! But it was still neat. Then we had some good old pb and j sandwiches at a picnic area and there were quite a few people there that thought Brylianna and Corbin were super cute, and they thought our Poco kid carriers were awesome. We could have been walking advertisements for them lol.
Brylianna loved throwing rocks into some puddles and walking around and getting some energy out. Then it was time to head back if we wanted to get back before dark. Man, it was hard getting up and putting the kids in the packs again and starting our long trek back. On the way back I braved jumping across the logs in the river and Pat was sweet and found 2 extra ones so that I could make the last jump across. I am so glad I didn't get my shoes wet. My feet were already starting to hurt with what I would later find out were two huge blisters on each of my pinky toes.
The way back was still gorgeous but it was a long ways with Corbin's extra weight for me. Man those stairs on the way back were killer, my quads were burning and with all the downhill parts, my toes were hurting. The last few miles were hard and I was literally telling myself to just keep going one foot in front of the other. Stuff like that always makes me feel grateful I wasn't a pioneer. But I do always feel awesome afterwards, it is always cool to accomplish hard things and be stronger because of it. We figured our hike was probably around 11 miles. When we were coming out of the forest on the last little stretch it looked so dark and it was astonishing how light it still was when we finally exited the forest. We got to the car and I found a nearby bench and sat down to nurse Corbin, and it was the sweetest thing cuz Brylianna came over and brought me some wildflowers and said good job mommy. Made my heart burst.
I will say it was a very neat way to explore the redwood forests though and it was fun to be in the forest and get the whole experience and see some of the beautiful places in this world.

We will plan better next time we do something like that though cuz after that crazy hiking adventure we had a 7 hour drive to our next hotel! I'm sad it was getting dark so fast cuz it was probably a gorgeous drive through some more foresty area with huge trees and close to the coast, so it would have been fun to see during the day. We got there just before 2 am and were super tired. It was a super fun day though filled with lots of memories that we won't forget! Next time, I could really just spend a whole week vacationing in the Redwood national forest area. I had no idea it would be so neat and pretty and that it was so close to the coast and there were a lot of places that had easy beach access.

Woke up in Oregon and headed to California

Finally out of the car

Walking among giants

They wanted our bed. Little cuties

The ocean!

We did James Irvine trail to fern canyon, but some other signs along the way said 4.8 miles, 5 miles etc, so we don't really know how long it was! And we took a couple of shorter side trips on the way there so that added a little bit more mileage too