France Pre Trip- The Pacific Ocean and the Redwoods

Before Matt and I headed off over the Atlantic Ocean we decided to take a trip down the coasts of Caliornia and Oregon with the ultimate destination of San Francisco. We needed to get to San Francisco, so Matt could get his VISA from the French Conulate, however we decided that since we were going there anyway, we may as well have fun on the way, see some sights we've never seen and visit friends and family. The first 3 days of this part of the adventure (August 31st-September 2nd) were occupied by the Oregon Coast and Redwoods.

Friday we drove down the Oregon Coast from Newport to Coos Bay and camped at Sunset Bay State Beach. We spent the evening watching the sun go down over the Pacific at Cape Arago, and I begrudgingly agreed to get up at 3:30 in the morning to watch a once in a lifetime meteor shower. Depsite there being a very bright moon we saw more shooting stars than I've probably seen in a lifetime, and I appreciated seeing them. But believe me it was a struggle to get up that early when my vacation from 4:00 a.m. work mornings had just begun.





Saturday we got up early and stopped at Cape Blanco about an hour into our drive. It is the westernmost point in Oregon and the site of one of the oldest still functional lighthouses on the Oregon Coast.



However, the focus of our day was on the Redwoods, so we drove most of the morning, and reached Jedidiah Smith State Park. There we saw some of the largest and most beautiful stands of Coast Redwoods that I've ever seen:











On Sunday, we left our campsight at Prarie Creek Redwoods State Park as early as we could, and drove out to Gold Beach and Fern Canyon, an 8 mile trip down a dusty dirt road. And as Matt aptly said in the car on the way there, it wouldn't be a normal trip for us if he didn't want to get to some beautiful destination that requires me to drive on a crappy road. But luckily the end result is usually always worth it, and Fern Canyon was definitely worth it. Fern Canyon, is pretty much what you would expect from the name, a narrow canyon, located just off Gold Beach that is filled with ferns.





Just as we were leaving fern canyon, the sun broke through some trees at the top of the canyon and created this beautiful sight:



The rest of the week has been quite busy as well and filled with other great adventures, but this is a very long blog already, so I'll leave it until later.