That night we drove to Monterey and stayed at a nice hotel. It was nice until a herd of elephants came into the room above ours at 12:30 and didnt quiet down until after 4 am. I was the only one awake so I was the only one kept awake. Oh well.
The next morning, bright and early, we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It is a really fun place. We saw some dolphins jumping in the water outside the aquarium. The girls loved the sea horses. Clara couldnt stop talking about the sea turtles. We were done with the aquarium around 3 and met my uncle back at our hotel. He lives in Hollister, Ca, about 45 min away. He then took us to a little beach in Moss Landing. He was trying to take us to a place called Elkhorn Slough. But we had a lot of fun. Lexa doesnt remember playing in the ocean and this was Clara's first time. The weather was cold, about 50 degrees, but the girls insisted on putting their feet in the water. Clara was in love with it!!! I thought she was going to get hypothermia. But thankfully she didnt. Lexa likes walking around and picking up sea shells and making sand castles. We probably could have stayed all day, but it was getting late so we headed into Moss Landing for dinner. We found this tiny place called Haute Enchilada. It was a little pretentious but good. I had an artichoke and cheese tamale. We left my uncle Lex and headed back up the coast of California. We passed through San Francisco again (waving at the Haynies!) and spent the night at Healdsburg. Nolan really wanted to swim so he took the girls in the morning to the hotel swimming pool.
Thursday we got some Subway sandwiches and headed out again. We were going to picnic in the Redwoods but at 1:30 we realized that wasnt going to happen. We finally stopped and ate at a park in Willits. They were setting up a farmers market in the park we were eatting at. There was a lady that used paper from different places to decorate the outside of glass containers. She was so excited about reusing items. It was a very California thing but they were very pretty.
The first place we came to following lunch was Chandelier Tree, a tree you could drive through the middle of. It was pretty tight in our car, but we made it! When we were leaving the park we came around the corner to find 3 girls surrounding a broke down car and trying to flag people down. Now, once we were stranded on the side of the road with a small child for 3 hours without getting any help, so we try to be more helpful when we see people in need. Well, they decided (no one had cell service) that one of the girls just needed a ride to Garberville, about 25 miles away. After a lot of humming and hawing we decided to give her a ride. She sat in the car between the girls playing with them. She was a hoot to listen to. She was totally a hippie chick (probably a little high) trying to make it to a weekend concert we had passed earlier called Kate Wolf. She kept telling Lexa to always believe in magic and never forget. She told us her dream is to start a Waldorf school for children, teaching through art and music. She wants to do this in a communal setting, selling produce for school funds, having parents chip in to help. She was amusing to say the least. We dropped her off a few minutes later and noticed a lot of groups of hippie, wandering, backpack people gathered in Garberville.
Then we traveled down the Highway of Giants. We stopped a few places, hiked around, took pictures. It was a way cool drive. I have never seen the Redwoods before and I loved it.
We are spending the night in Eureka! Nolan made sure to get another hotel with a swimming pool, indoors this time. So after dinner and checking in we took a quick swim and played marco polo with some other kids in the pool.
Well, the kids are crashed and we have another day of Redwoods tomorrow. Probably wont get very far tomorrow, but then starting to head home. If we have time we might try some caves in Oregon. What a fun summer trip. I keep telling Nolan what a fun dad he is to take us on this adventure :)
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