On Walkabout at: Lady Bird Johnson Grove, California

From the Trees of Mystery my wife and I then headed south on Highway 101 to spend the afternoon in the nearby Redwood National Park:

The drive south was quite scenic with the highway surrounded by the rolling green hills of redwood trees.  After less then an hour of driving we eventually drove into Redwood National Park:

The location my wife and I wanted to see in the Redwood National Park was the Lady Bird Johnson Grove.  As soon as we arrived in the parking lot we could see one lone redwood tree soaring over the much younger redwood trees that surrounded it:

This was just a preview of the many more large redwood trees to come located in the grove.  This grove is named after the wife of former US President Lyndon B. Johnson.  Lady Bird Johnson was a well known environmentalist in her day and in 1969 Richard Nixon dedicated this grove to her due to her environmental work:

From the parking lot we followed a trail into the dense forest to find more of these monsterous redwood trees:

The under growth in this grove of trees was about as thick as the other redwood groves I visited in the area:

At first we didn’t see any large redwood trees, but we did see a number of these blue birds that call this area of the forest home:

Eventually the trees did come into view and yes they were quite large:

All we needed was some Ewoks to show up to feel like we were on Endor:

Here is the tops of the trees pictured in the above photograph:

A number of the large redwoods had these hollows cut out of them by forest fires that sometimes occur in these forests:

These holes do not kill the trees because of how hardy the redwoods are, but they do provide shelter for the various animals and birds that call this forest home.  The trees in this grove are actually not quite as red as other redwoods since it is located at over 1,000 feet in altitude and away from the coast were the redwoods tend to me at its reddest color:

The hike through the grove takes only about an hour and is definitely worth checking out if visiting the park:

As nice as this walk through the woods is the Stout Memorial Grove to the north I found to be more scenic than the redwoods in this national park.

After visiting Redwood National Park my wife and I spent the night at nearby Eureka, California.  Eureka was located in a nice sea side location, but it was a bit of an odd town filled with loggers and hippies.  Not that bad of a place though and my wife and I had a nice time staying there.  However, the next morning we planned to drive east across the coastal range to reach I-5 to take us nearer to our next destination at Yosemite National Park.

Next Posting: East Across the California Coastal Range