What Fun We Had! part 2

Yesterday we covered all of July so in todays blog we will cover the wonderful adventures of August.

In august we had a visitor, My cousin came and stayed for several weeks and joined us on our camping adventures. I love camping! It is the best place to discover life in its simplistic form. It is easy to imagine what life was like out in the west when people came out with very little and had to make things work. It also lends itself to scientific discoveries very nicely.

So in the beginning of August we went to a little camp sight off of highway 101 in the north part of the state. We camped at a state park called Standish-Hickey. This land is beautiful. near the giant redwoods of California as well as near several wonderful natural attractions.

Here is our tent after we got to camp and set it up!

This tent is a giant 3 room tent and slept 8 people very comfortably! we could have fit 2 more easily. We had a boys room and a girls room and then us moms shared a room. My cousin had his own little tent, which he would probably die of mortification if I showed you the only shot I have of that one. :)

On our first evening there we walked around the camp site after we set up camp to get our bearings and enjoy the nature around us. We found lots of poison oak growing so stuck strictly to the trails. We did spot wild berries growing but they were not ripe yet. we had fun taking snap shots posing in the trees as well as of the trees.

Snap shot of the trees at dusk

When we were preparing to go camping we sat and discussed exactly what meals we wanted while we were there. It was a great idea as we were able to prep most of our food in advance and then just have it packed according to days in the ice chests and tupper container. On the first morning we had from scratch blueberry pancakes over the open fire, made on my cast iron griddle. Everyone swore they were the best pancakes they ever ate!

There just seems to be something so wonderful about fresh pancakes hot off a griddle that can make your mouth water! Later that day we went and discovered the drive through tree It is called the Chandelier tree because the top of it has many full size trees all growing off the one stump.

looking from the ground up very top of the chandelier tree

We took pictures standing inside the drive through tree.

Then we adventured into the gift shop to see what interesting discoveries we could find there. I saw this "logging truck" toy and thought it was cute.

We headed back to camp where we spotted interesting tree growth like this

as well as some beautiful shots like this

We headed back to camp had lunch and then decided for an afternoon hike. where we learned that the law of gravity is completely true. If you go down you have to go back up! We were completely deceived by this sign : .3 miles should not be far, however what the sign does not tell us is that nearly the whole trail is down a steep hill that we had to hike down, with 6 children! This picture is taken as we are coming back up the hill shortly after going down it. we also discovered what several insects while on our adventure hike into the woods, as well as markings left by the bugs. this wood has trails left by termites. And this is a dragon fly that matches the wood so well its almost hard to see him sitting there. Nature at its very best!

The next day of our camping adventure took us to discover a strange spot where gravity seems to be defied.

The kids are at the base of the totem pole that is carved out of one tree.

We spent several hours exploring the confusing area, as well as the beautiful tribute to 9/11

Once we left Confusion Hill we headed back towards camp with a quick lay over in the woods where they filmed part of Star Wars, home of the Ewoks.

and we discovered just how small on this planet we really are.