The Redwood Forest, Day 4

The Avenue of the giants.
One of best friends I have ever had is Eric Hennessey, before he traveled all over the country, I had been to quite a few places. I would come home and tell him how cool it was to see the painted desert, or Joshua tree, or the Grand Canyon, ect. Then he went on a trip to the west coast and saw the Redwood forest. From then on everything he saw was trumped by the redwoods, nothing compares, so I was set on seeing them for myself. Well, it did not disappoint. The Avenue of the Giants is a 31 mile stretch of old Rt 101 that winds in and out of the biggest trees on our planet. How long does it take to drive a van 31 miles you ask? It took us 7 1/2 hours. I got us up at 7am once again and we were half hour away from the park entrance, it was dark when we were leaving the park.

Joe looking up and realizing you can't really see the tops of the trees cause they blend together like staring down a straight road that disappears into the horizon.

Dan venturing across a totally safe walking tree... it'll hold!!!

Joe got right to the edge of this, I was yelling at him total old man status, "Hey, get down from there sonny, your goona git yourself kilt." I always feel like such an asshole after yelling at my friends when I think they might soon die because they make the stupid decision to get a closer look. Why isn't one foot from the edge of the unstable rotted wooden plank good enough?

Originally we were gonna film an edit of the trip, I'll tell you why we aren't later in another post, but at this point, we talked Dan into doing this gap for a Redwood forest clip!! Ever seen one of those? Well, we had to build his bike and get the camera stuff out, so I started building the bike, then it started raining, so Joe took over, I got the camera stuff ready. Dan was pacing back and forth looking at the now wet road and where he wanted to slide across it once he landed. Joe never really finished what I started so Dan did the gap with his pedals on by 1 thread. Dan also picked the right spot, cause as soon as he hit the pavement, he blew off his bike and slid across it. All in all, the first clip of the trip was done and done!!

This was a downed tree just off the side of the road, we all took the same pic in it.

This is us all running towards the camera and tripod that I placed in the middle of the road so we could get a group pic, we had to be like 100 feet away to get us and the trees in it. The camera took pics every few seconds and then a car came so we took off running to save the cam. Clearly Joe would win any foot race if his camera is on the line.

Here I am after venturing down this stream for a few... At one point we had to cross it and I took a different route. It looked good, much like one of those traps in the Predator movie where you dig a hole, cover it with sticks and leaves and then when you walk on it, you fall to your death. Well, I didn't die, but I did fall through and go knee deep in some cold spring water. I swear it looked like it was nice strong ground. We all got a good laugh out of it.