Quiet in Trinidad

Truth be told, we hadn’t made it quite all the way to Trinidad yet, but we were south of whatever other little town we were next to. After a crazy busy month of travels and exploring (let’s recap for a moment because holy wow, this month has been action packed. We entered September in Portland and moved to another campground in Portland, then moved to Bend, Crater Lake, Grants Pass, Cave Junction, and were now somewhere south of Trinidad before ending the month in Tahoe. When Chris is working full time, we have two different sets of visitors, are coordinating flights for visitors AND Chris, this month has seemed insane. It was FUN, but a bit crazy, and planned so. I figured if Chris and I were both feeling sad about ending this trip then traveling us to the point of exhaustion would be a good way to get us to want to go home, and hey! It worked! After my parents left we looked at each other and figured all the big exciting stuff was out of the way, so we could just head home, except! We have one last great visit with my aunt and uncle in Park City and Chris’ plane trips are already purchased) so, I digress, after a crazy busy month of travels and exploring, we found ourselves in a VERY quiet place in the middle of nowhere. And that felt nice.

The week spent in the middle of nowhere was cool because we were right next to the Redwoods, a mile from the beach, and surrounded by elk. It was also the YEAR anniversary of us leaving Colorado which was perfect as San Francisco was only 350 miles away, which was the point we had made it to on the first leg of the trip so we had made it all the way around in the period of year (excluding Texas) which felt like a milestone. We spent Sunday evening watching the sunset on the beach as sea lions played in the waves and we hurried home when the temperature dropped. There was NOTHING where we were for at least a half hour, which was where Chris would be working so for the first time this year we had run into a situation where the kids and I would be at the camper the entire week. I felt fine with this until Tuesday when it was the second day in a row where the temps did not climb out of the 50’s, the air was damp, and an unmoving fog surrounded us. Chris would get home in the evenings and we would all watch the elk and listen to them bugle or go hiking in the Redwoods, but I wasn’t sure how the rest of the week was going to pan out. It was a bit of an eye opener when I felt like we were doing nothing this week and there we were, experiencing these beautiful elk graze right in front of us and listen to them as I’ve never heard them before, hiking in the redwoods and watching sea lions play in the waves. 

Wednesday dawned bright and sunny and had us up and out of the camper checking things out. There was an old school house on the grounds that was used in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s and the manager saw us checking it out so he came and unlocked it for us to explore. It was pretty cool to pretend we were back in the day and we left our little school house headed for the beach. We rode our bikes down to the beach passing some grazing elk along the way. The beach was beautiful and we climbed rocks and met some beachcombers collecting agates, so we joined them unsuccessfully for a while and retired on our blanket to read our book before heading home for lunch. Thursday the kids rode bikes, I read my book and we soaked up the cool sunshine, One of our favorite nights ever will go down on the beach that Thursday as we went there for sunset and when we arrived we saw a huge herd of elk! Seeing these creatures throughout the week has been incredible, but having a huge herd standing on the beach with the sunset and crashing waves as a backdrop was beautiful. A large male was surrounded by approx. 15 females. We walked far down on the beach around them to grab some pictures, and even with our distance he watched us the entire time. When two of the females wandered closer to us he circled around them, bugling to get them in a tighter herd. What responsibility he must feel! Later two more males appeared and they all stood around bugling at one another until the other two faded back into the tall grass.

Friday had the kids working more on their "mine" (a game where they pull out shovels and saws and the hatchet and dig and chop wood and arrange it into piles) and we readied the camper (meaning I wrestled with the sewer hose that was running uphill...my how far things have come since the days when I wouldn't touch it) for when Chris got home so we could continue on our way!