California Redwoods
Avenue of the Giants
June 11, 2002
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California Redwoods June 11, 2002 |
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The next day, Travis, Tara, Joshua, and Travis's parents piled into Travis's car for an adventure in the redwoods. Our first sight-seeing stop was at Chandelier Tree, which for a mere fee of $3 per car, one could drive through the tree. Everyone was pleased that Travis's car made it through (the opening was 6' wide).
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We thought Joshua would like to sit on top of one of the downed logs. "Like" may have been too strong of a word, but it was too far for him to jump down.
Our next stop was a grove in the Avenue of the Giants where we had the chance to frolick in the river. Joshua enjoyed the water until it started carrying him away downstream (Tara had to rescue him). After that, he contented himself with barking at the rocks that were being skipped across the river.
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| Here Travis is standing next to a tree that the visitor's center claims was 839 years old when they chopped it down in 1987 to count its rings. One of the plaques near the center says "1215 Magna Carta Signed". Joshua was having a great time. | 
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Afterwards, we went on a hike in the Founder's Grove, where there were some amazingly huge trees.
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It was dark and shady in the forest. It is hard to get a sense of scale in the forest, as the trees at left were at least as wide as the one whose cross section is shown above. The sunlight would come through and paint bright lines of vibrant green. It's not uncommon for the lowest branches of the tree to be at least 150' up, and for the diameter's to be greater than 10' at the base. Here's a picture of all of us (Joshua took the picture) at the Founder's Tree, which has the following statistics: Height - 346.1'; Diameter 12.7'; Circumference 40.0'; Height to Lower Limb 190.4'
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The next day we celebrated Travis's birthday with his family. We went to dinner at The Broiler with his parents and family friends Gladys and Jack. Afterwards, we had cake at home.
Thursday, we drove back, stopping in San Jose to see Travis's grandma and one of his aunts. We also had dinner with Autumn, then drove all night, returning home to San Diego around 3am.
