Elk Prarie SP rest day - 2 miles

This morning I woke up early as usual and tried to remind myself that it's a rest day and I don't HAVE to get up! I slept in until about 8am and enjoyed the bright, warm rays of sun streaming through my tent walls! I felt pretty stiff and sore, but after burning my fingers a few times on my campstove, no longer noticed anything else! I worked on getting all my papers dry and thought through my route a bit more. I've decided not to do the Lost Coast option, and enjoyed a piping hot breakfast of oatmeal and cocoa. I spent some time getting to know the unicycle boys and their father. They're high-school seniors doing a senior project of designing a unicycle route. Definitely not your average senior project! I watched them ride off for the day and had to laugh! It was just too funny and it seemed like something out of a fairytale book! Today is a rest day for Camille, but I'm planning on spending the day hiking through the redwoods. I stopped by the visitor's center where I picked up a map and a chart for identifying the plants and animals of the redwoods. The first hike I took was the Cathedral Trees, a short one and a half mile trip each way. I just can't get over how amazing the redwood forest is! The trees are so tall and seem to stretch endlessly above, while giant trunks plant them firmly to the ground in small family groups that hold each other up. The silence and hush of the redwoods is something else too. I'm not sure I've ever heard such quiet and utter stillness in a place before. It was very peaceful and made me very much in awe of the creator.

Back from the Cathedral trees, I walked the Prarie Creek trail to meet the James Irvine trail which would take me on a long 10 mile hike to Fern Canyon near the beach. I loved every minute of it, but my biking sandals started doing a number on my feet and it started to get dark, so I turned back just before reaching the canyon. I sure didn't want to get stuck out in the middle of the forest when it got dark! When I finally got back to camp, there were two girls set up beside me in the hiker-biker campsite! I was pretty amazed, but enjoyed meeting them briefly. They were riding from Portland, OR to San Francisco, CA. They were pretty giggly, and after a while I started to feel very old and serious! :) As I ate my dinner, the Roosevelt Elk started grazing all throughout the campground which was pretty much empty. They're amazing creatures and it was fun to munch my dinner while they grazed theirs. They would look up occasionally to watch as birds flew overhead. Sometimes this trip seems like a prolonged and extended search for a restroom, but a visit like this to the redwoods just puts it all back into perspective.