We had all day to go fool around today. We elected to make another run down the Newton B. Drury Parkway into Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. Being old and fat, I asked Peggy to stop by the park visitor center so I could acquire a trail map of the park. I strolled in and a scrawny, healthy-looking female Ranger about 19 years old began telling me about all the park trails that she liked but, strangely, she chose all the trails that were longer than five miles. She also had a flamboyant drawing style that she put to use on my map such that all the important details had been obscured by her furious scribbling. I took the now-compromised map and left. There is no likelihood that I would be taking any of her advice but I was disappointed that she had doodled up my map such that all the important details had been obliterated.
We first chose to drive up a gravel road called Cal Barrel that ran three bumpy, narrow but absolutely gorgeous miles before dying out at a dirt parking lot. It is a beautiful drive but the fastest we could go was about 7 miles an hour, some parts slower. The road passes through groves of gigantic Redwoods and they are impressive. Perhaps an hour later, we returned to the Drury Parkway and headed a bit north to a trail to the Big Tree. We strolled in and checked out the Big Tree and it should probably be described as the BIG TREE. It has a diameter of 25′ and a circumference of about 78′ but the top has been blown out of it so it is only 286 ‘ tall.
Along the trail back to our truck, Peggy spotted a unique appendage growing from a Redwood tree and promptly named that tree Biggus Dickus for plainly obvious reasons. There is a picture of Peggy and Biggus in today’s photos. We admired Mr. Dickus for quite a while before heading back to the truck for a spin back toward the visitor center to eat lunch. We wanted to eat near the almost ubiquitous elk that inhabit the park and we went to the elk viewing pasture a few miles south but found no elk of any ilk.
We returned to an “authorized vehicles only” road near the visitor center and authorized ourselves to park where there were no other folks nearby. When we looked over, we spotted 5 big elk bulls grazing in the maintenance yard. The elk were quite serene, browsing on grass shoots when some woman with a German accent pulled up almost to the elk and got out of her car, a very poor idea during elk rutting season. The elk started to get restless and gave her the fish eye. A pair of park Rangers pulled up behind her but were blocked from continuing by her vehicle. She then started hollering at the Rangers, alleging their dog was spooking the elk. The only thing we saw spooking the elk was the woman and we didn’t see any dog at all. After the German left, the elk calmed down and settled in for a nap in the shade. Roosevelt bull elk are just entering mating season and it is best not to approach them, even if you are a Hun.
We finished up our lunch in the park before heading back up the Drury Parkway toward another trail, this time to something called the Corkscrew Tree which was actually several Redwoods that have grown with their stalks twisted around each other like a candy cane, albeit a several hundred ton candy cane. Walking around these giant trees makes even big dorks like me feel insignificant.
There are some pictures, including one of Peggy and Biggus Dickus, if you click here