Meyers Flatt, CA to Leggett, CA - 44 Miles
There are a few difficulties with camping in the middle of the redwood forest. The scenery is beautiful, but being surrounded by 300 foot tall trees means it gets darker earlier in the evening and gets light later in the morning. The other problem is the temperature. This was our coldest morning of the trip. It just takes the sun and heat longer to filter down that far. Ironically, our coldest morning turned into our hottest day.
Today we made it to the "Drive Thru Tree." Apparently there are at least 3 in the redwood forest, and we passed one today. It's just off the Avenue of the Giants in a park. The park also has tree houses, hollowed out stumps with roofs made into play houses. The boys loved them!
I left camp this morning humming the song "Mendocino County Line." It must have been intuition because I'm not up to snuff enough on my California geography to know that Mendocino county is south of Humboldt county. Sure enough, this afternoon we passed the Mendocino county line. The reason this is significant is because it reminds me of a family vacation when I was in High School.
Right about the time we crossed the Mendocino county line (and commented on the song) my Mom and I had a memorable conversation. I was telling her how one day I wanted to design and build my own home, but not just the house itself. I wanted to build/make everything in the house (the furniture, the cabinets, the bedding). Her response was, "You know, you're going to get married one day. What if your husband doesn't like your crazy ideas?" All I said was, "Oh, don't worry. My husband will LOVE my crazy ideas." I feel like the conversation came full circle today being here at the Mendocino county line with Stephen, doing something that some have called crazy. Funny though, it doesn't seem crazy to us. It seems perfectly normal. We were meant for each other.
"I keep these pictures and I keep these photographs to remind me of a ti-i-ime. These pictures and these photographs help me know I-I-I'm doing fine."
