Big Love for Big Basin

Before we left for California I e-mailed my cousin Meagan (who lives in the area we were headed) and asked her for fun things to do. A few days later she e-mailed me an amazing, well categorized, and detailed list. It was AWESOME (thank you to Meagan!). One of the categories was "Redwoods." Turns out there are a couple of Redwood forests close to our vacation destination, and one of them, according to Meagan, has some of the biggest oldest Redwoods in the area. I knew visiting this forest was on the top of my "to do" list. So, on Tuesday we headed to Big Basin State Park.

The drive was spectacular, but very windy. Hunter and I both got a little sick, luckily not to the point of revisiting our breakfast, just enough to make the two of us a little uncomfortable. We recovered quickly once out of the car and in the fresh forest air. Big Basin has several hikes you can take, we choose the one that's a little less than a mile long (perfect for little legs) and contains the biggest trees in the forest. We had so much fun on this hike together. My favorite part was when we stopped in a grove of ginormous trees and played hide-and-seek together. We moved right along to tag and as I watched Tralee dash in, out, and around the giant grove of redwoods with her daddy chasing right behind her, both of them giggling, I thought to myself, "I will never forget this moment." It was perfect!

We ended our adventure at a little mom-and-pop diner in Boulder City and ate some fantastic food. I swear, mom-and-pop places are ALWAYS better than the big chain restaurants.

Now for pictures:

The above pictures are of the kids and me in a giant tree right outside the visitor center. One close up, and one far away so you can register just how huge the tree is!

The pictures below are all of the same tree. One of Jim inside it, one of the entire hollow tree from inside looking up, and one from the outside looking up.

Below Jim and Tralee are hiding from me.

Yup Jim, that's a tall tree.

I took the picture below just cause she looked so pretty sitting on the bench in the middle of the forest.

The picture below didn't really turn out, but I still put it in so you can see how huge the base of the tree is we're sitting on. Craziness I tell you!

Tralee running out of a giant tree. Probably in the middle of playing tag or something.

Hunter sauntered through the forest, picking up various rocks, sticks, and greenery along the way. Such a little boy!

Jim and Tralee playing hide and seek. Tralee's running away to hide.

Isn't Hunter so cute?

Hunter found Daddy!

Now they're hiding together.

Jim standing by the "Father of the Forest"

Jim and Tralee by "Mother of the Forest"

Our whole family went inside the mother of the forest and played house for a bit. Tralee sat down, faced the inside trunk of the tree and said, "I'm going to watch tv." She sat like this for several minutes, every once in a while lifting her arm to "change the channel" and then announce what show was on. Then she would sit and watch for a few minutes until she decided to change the channel again. Jim and I just sat back and watched her imagination at work.

Here's Hunter climbing out of Mother Tree. Tralee's still in the background channel surfing.

I took a ton of pictures of Hunty looking up. This was the cutest one. He looked up a lot in this forest, I think we all did.

We had a lovely day together. The trees were incredible. I mean really really jaw-dropping incredible. Something everyone should see once in their lives if they're every near a redwood forest. The food was delish; the company, five-star. Definitely a day I'll want to revisit in the old memory jar for years to come.