Day 17 Part 2

 We left the Trees of Mystery and drove up the coast to Crescent City to explore some tidal pools. CD was so excited!! She had been looking forward to this as much as meeting the Princesses at Disneyland. It was a bit chilly but so exciting to explore everything around the dark gritty sand and pools!

 

  The girls found all kinds of things among the rocks and little pools ~ crabs, shells, clams, fish, anemones, purple kelp & sea weed.

We had more miles to make but what an amazing view!!

Day 17

 We left San Fran and drove the coast up to Klamath CA and spent the night in a teeny tiny cabin in the Redwood Forest.

 I was a little worried when I saw these signs all along the highway..

Day 17

Early in the morning we checked out for our LONG driving day ahead but first stopped at...

 

A 'drive thru tree'. It is hard to picture how HUGE these wonders really are!! I stood in awe at their incredible size. They really are amazing! Imagine how much of the planet they used to cover!!

We drove a couple miles up the road to 

 

 

CD found Big Foot!

This tree is called 'The Family Tree.' It has 12 different trees growing from one living tree supported by one trunk. Incredible!

After a pretty good hike, we took the Sky Trail lift to the top of the Redwood Forest canopy...

 

 Back down...

I am so glad that we were able to experience a morning with these giants!

 

 

 The funniest story of the morning was when we first arrived... CD ran ahead of us and started screaming hysterically... she was shaking her foot and really freaking out. CJ kept saying, "I told you not to step on that banana peel!" When we caught up we discovered that CD had not stepped on banana peel but a large yellow banana slug (much bigger than the one here) and it stuck to the bottom of her shoe. She gave a her foot a few more good shakes until it finally flung off! She mentioned to the locals inside what happened as we were a little worried they might be as precious as the trees. They were not too alarmed and happy that there was one less slug outside. Banana slugs were not quite as huge as the Redwoods but still giant slugs to us!! eww

 So much fun! I love that we were able to do this trip! Thanks Moto-Moto! I love you!

 Looking back it was a really busy day! More driving ahead of us and one of the highlights of the trip for CD! This was on her list before we started our road trip.. 

(guess what the next part of our adventure was?!)

Day 15 & 16

Sightseeing Around San Fran

We drove 45 minutes to 1 Jelly Belly Lane, Fairfield
CA to tour...

We arried just after 9 am and had a 20 minute wait.

We were given our factory hats and instructed NOT to take any photos (I took one just before we entered the actual factory.. Moto- Moto was worried we'd get kicked out because I snapped one!)

It was interesting but the best part was sampling the 150 flavors of jelly beans!!

We tried as many of them as we could and since they were available tried the BeanBozzled  flavors

Moto-Moto tried Skunk Spray... he didn't taste anything bizzare but when he breathed out... ewww. He decided to try his luck a second time with Vomit and LOST!! Gross!! Who in the world tests these flavors? An employee on probation?!

Juicy Pear is my fav so I hoped there was a chance it would taste the same... nope BOOGER!

 

CJ was  brave and went with Baby Wipes

Don't these just tell it all! 

CD was the smartest of us all and kept asking for the safe flavors!

We loaded up on Bellyflops (irregular shape, size & color jelly beans but still delicious and 1/2 price!)

 The girls wanted a Jelly Bean shaped pizza for lunch and got their souvenir cup ($2.99 with free refills from the Jelly Belly Cafe or $3.99 in the gift shop... no brainer!)

Drove back into San Fran ...

Chinatown

 The largest Chinatown outside of Asia

 The address we had on our gps took us here...

 To a hidden little back alley "fortunately" it was right~ here we found Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory

 It is a tiny little place with little ladies busy making fresh hot fortune cookies. As you step in a little Asian man hands everyone a flat cookie... mmmm

Bags of cookies are $3.50, we got a couple bags of  the chocolate and plain. I snapped a picture & handed the little man 75cents (they asked for 50) and he threw in a few handfuls of flat cookies. The girls thought it was pretty cool.

We had enough of Chinatown... and surprised the girls with driving  down... Lombard Street

This one is taken from inside our car...

Quick walk down to Pier 39

I wish we had more time to spend in San Fran, it was a beautiful city! Our last adventure was The Golden Gate Wind Party (thanks to the Wolfe family for the idea.) We rolled down our windows, turned on the tunes and with our hair blowing wildly, drove over the iconic bridge...

The next part of our road trip is up the California west coast to the Redwood forest and our night in our teeny tiny cabin in the woods...