Our family vacation to the great NorCal!

So sort of on a whim, we decided to take a family vacation before I got too far along in the pregnancy and before the baby was born. After searching for just the right place, we settled on Northern California to the Great Redwoods! We had such a great time! The boys loved hiking in the forests and exploring the beaches, and the scenery was so spectacular! It was a very relaxing and fun trip for all of us (except for the blizzard detour we had to make on the way home--see below) So here are some highlights our most recent adventure:

DAY 1:

We had originally decided to get up about 4am and do the whole days worth of driving in one day. However the night before we were to leave, Rich ended up working really late and I had one of my migraines, so that slowed the "getting packed and ready" part WAY down. So at 1:00AM, when we finally did go to bed, we made an executive decision to "sleep in" and leave at 7:00AM instead. We stopped in Wells, NV to say hi to my Grandma and have breadfast. After that, we made it all the way to Williams, CA. When we took a closer look at the map, we realized that we had 200 miles of VERY winedy (is that spelled right?!?) and steep roads to get us into Eureka, CA, which was our final destination. So we stopped short at about 11:00PM at Williams, CA. and called it a day.

Breakfast in the car...granola bars and Yoohoos!

DAY 2:

We Watts are not exactly morning people--AT ALL. We got up and at 'em at about 10:00 then stopped at Applebees for lunch at noon. My bladder could NOT handle more that 1 hour in the car at a time! What a huge pain that was! (sorry Rich!) We finally made it to Eureka, CA that evening and went to eat at Denny's because after we had got settled in, that was really the only thing open.

DAY 3:

So we took great care to get all the touist info and brouchures there was to offer. We decided for our first adventure we would head North to the Redwood Forest and do some hiking. One of the hikes recommeded was in Fern Canyon. So we all donned our sneakers, jeans and water bottles for our so called hike. We really did expect trails! What we actually got was another winedy muddy road that went for 6 miles to a parking lot. Along the way, we saw so many wild elk! It was really neat. So we were geared up for our hike. What we found was no such trail, but a wet river bed, with lots of mud, rocks and fallen trees on our "trail". After awhile of trying to stay clean and dry, we gave up and just let the kids get dirty and wet. We had more fun after that! Richie and Rich donned a hiking stick, and looked as though they were ready to be on survivor, and Carter held tight to a stick and a rock the whole time, and he definately threw caution to the wind and went crazy, exploring and getting plenty dirty. He was so in his element!

We literally had to go over the river and through the woods to get here!

Survivor anyone?


Trying to stay dry....


...then just giving up!

DAY 4:

Today we headed south to the tiny town of Ferndale, played on the black sand beaches and went to a cheese factory (with free cheese tasting-yum!) and to the Avenue of the Giants.

At the black sand beaches:

This is Ferndale, which is a small town built in the 1800's. It's a whole town of historic Victorian homes and businesses. It was so cute!! It looked like we stepped into a Thomas Kinkade brouchure. We stopped at this little toy shop that looked exactly like Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. We spent at least an hour in there playing with vintage toys and looking around.


Here we are at the Loletta cheese factory tasting their yummy cheese!






Hiking in The Avenue of Giants:

Richie and Dad in front of fallen down tree--these are the "roots"

See Carter at the very bottom?



Richie and Carter playing inside a tree cave.


Driving thru the "Drive-Thru Tree".


DAY 5:

We leave Eureka and head south. We went to this great hidden beach called Shelter Cove at the bottom of yet another curvy, steep road. We saw a lighthouse and explored the tidepools. We had plans on going on to "Confusion Hill" where gravity is "off" and things slant to the sides, but we got there 30 minutes too late, much to the dissapointment of Richie.

At the Lighthouse at Shelter Cove.

Exploring the tidepools at Shelter Cove:




Check out these big guns!


Look at this star fish, Mom!


DAY 6:

We headed south yet again, and went to San Fransisco. We saw the Golden Gate Bridge, went to a really cool hands-on science museum, called The Exploritorium and went to lunch in the city.


San Fransisco Bay:

Golden Gate Bridge:

After our visit to San Fransisco, we were on our way home, however that proved more difficult than we expected! We were in a canyon heading west on I-80, about 40 miles east of Reno, when we got stuck in a blizzard! They made all the traffic move off the road and get snow chains for our tires. So this little mandatory detour ended costing us $120.00!!! Plus, it was dark and snowy and we couldn't get the chains to fit right, so finally we paid the worker guy another $20.00 to install them, just to find out that the attendant had given us the wrong size chains in the first place! So we got that all fixed up then got on the road again, but since there was 5" of snow and we had chains, we never went faster than 30 MPH. It took us another hour to get 20 minutes to Reno, where we stoppe for the night. Phew!

DAY 7:

On our way home today, we stopped in Wells, NV again to check in on my Grandma, as there was an earthquake there while we were gone. She was fine. Her house did have some damage to the chimney and fireplace, a couple of cracks in the walls, and everything in her cupboards fell our and her pictures all fell down. She was doing well, though, which we were very gratefull for.