Redwood National Park 6.22.08

Woohoo! We made it!! Our furthest place North and brrr is it chilly!! Haha.. Not really, the temps are in the low 60’s for a high, and into the 50’s at night. The drive here was pretty uneventful – we headed out around10:30 and headed North along Hwy 101. We stopped in Loleta to see the Loleta Cheese Factory – http://www.loletacheese.com/ – where Rita was nice enough to explain what was going on in the factory & even took my camera into the back room to snap some shots! Thanks Rita!! They were making 2 cheeses when we arrived – Cheddar & Organic Cheddar.

One of the vats was ‘cooking’, while the other was ‘cooling’ and was just about ready for the whey to be drained off (the watery substance) & the curds (the globs) to be placed into the boxes you see & pressed overnight. They place about 43 lbs in and in the morning, nice 40lb blocks of cheese are ready to cut & package. The whole process was pretty cool.

We continued up the 101 to Eureka, where we stopped for lunch & to see the Carson Mansion, a building that took 100 men over a year to build. I would love to see it from the inside!

By the way – folklore claim that when whaler James T. Ryan sailed into the bay in spring of 1850, he shouted ‘Eureka!’ (Greek for ‘I’ve found it!), and the name stuck. Funny…

Our campground is called ‘Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park’ and has an elk grazing prairie surrounding the entrance to the campground. We saw two elk – and a baby chomping away as we entered the park. Our campsite is very cool – (temperature and view!) – our tent is surrounded by 6 large moss-covered redwood trees, ferns, and beautiful greenery everywhere we look. It’s a pretty small campground – 76 sites total, and only 18 on our ‘loop’. We setup & are beginning to plan what we’ll do the next 5 days!

More to follow…
Rene
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