And then, after all that, we did this!

It was eventually time to hit the road again, so we bid a tearful farewell to our campground and it's accompanying playground, which had provided so many hours of good smelling woodsy playground fun. 

 Can you think of a better place for a playground? I'm such a fan.

I tell you what, if it weren't for Banana Slugs, I could live in the pacific northwest.

 Look at these roads. Yum.

We headed south on Highway 101, and saw many a gorgeous thing along the way. There's a lot of those up there.

 The Trees of Mystery! This is Paul Bunyan, or as my kids call him, Tall Bunkin. And his big blue ox, Babe. Have you ever been here? Funniest place ever. Paul talks to you! I don't know where the guy is that's talking, but he can obviously see us. He was hilarious.

The kids were asking him all about his story, where he got Babe and why he's blue, wether or not he had any kids, stuff like that.

He invited us to sit on his boot for a photo, so we did.

 This guy is seriously tall!

Does anyone else find it ironic that we have giant statues of Loggers in the middle of protected Old Growth Forests? Cracks me up.

One of our stops was at a National Park site, where the kids passed off their Junior Ranger books!

 They got their badges, then the ranger lady went in the back and brought out another badge and gave it to Millie, and said that she was the honorary junior ranger. Love it.

 Look at this chunk of stump! Years and years and years ago an Elk got his head stuck in this tree, and died because he was stuck. Then over the years the tree grew around him! You can actually see the back of his skull at the back of this stump. That's not something you find every day!

Is this not the cutest Ranger Station ever? It was chilly and damp outside, and the inside of this building had a huge fire going in the fireplace and it was cozy and dry. So nice! This building was built in the 30's, all hand hewn timbers. It was cool, is what I'm saying.

 This is Founders tree, which is just a huge tree dedicated to some people who protected this grove. I think.

This tree has been through many forest fires, and is basically gutted, but it's still alive! Serious!

 Look at it! Still green. Amazing.

The roots of redwoods are quite shallow, ten feet or so. But they stretch out and intertwine with the roots of neighboring trees for hundreds of feet! They hold each other up. Usually. Metaphors welcome.

After a good long day on the coast, we headed inland towards Sacramento, where we stayed the night with my Aunt Melanie and Uncle Johnny.

 Let the car games begin!

"Seriously, Mom? We're still sitting here?"

This face sums it up. Love it.

Donner Pass was exciting, as always.

 We sang. We watched movies. We read books and played play-doh and ate snacks and tickled feet and played word games and threw popcorn at each other.

 We stayed mostly sane.

Thank Heavens for sticker books.

And Amelia disappeared inside her current novel.

Somewhere in the Nevada Desert, Caleb started looking like this:

Love you, Babe! Can't wait to do it again!!

No, seriously. Let's go.