Mother's Day in Northern California

Mother’s Day and for the first time, Oscar said, “Happy Mother’s

I've never encountered the flowers blooming on the dunes

 Day” to me.  It took a while to get it all out, but he has happy down and day down so it was just the “mother’s” that took a while.  Today is the day to head up north because the weather is beautiful.  We tried to hit a restaurant for brunch, but not only is it mother’s day, it’s the weekend of Humboldt State’s and College of the Redwoods graduations, so there’s not a table to 

we don't look like we're freezing to death

 be found.  Kim and James stayed to find breakfast and we went north to Trinidad first.  It is sunny and gorgeous, but I always forget about the incredibly wind that comes off the Pacific.  It is gale force it seems and my ears are freezing before too long.  We are able to stand for a while and let Oscar throw rocks into the ocean.  There were a ton of rocks and no one was telling him to stop or not throw toward something else, so he was in heaven.  He probably could have stood there the rest of the 

pictures just don't capture it

 day, but we headed out on a new pier that wasn’t there when we were last here.  Some guy showed Oscar the crabs he had caught and they were leaving now because it was too cold.  We headed down to the water, Oscar didn’t want to come back up and had to be carried back up.  We headed to the windy part of the beach for a photo op with the John going down to touch the water and then it was time to warm up in the car.  We headed north on the 101 again and saw Roosevelt Elk in Orick, couldn’t 

another tree that Oscar could climb in to

 find the shop that we thought that we had been in 8 years ago and headed to Prairie Creek Redwood Park for a 2 mile hike through the Redwoods.  Oscar was not that impressed when I said that we were going to see some big trees.  He wasn’t impressed when we got out of the car and until he could stand inside one, he remained impassive.  But when he got inside a tree and saw how high up it went, he was sold.  We had races up the trail and time the return pretty good because we only had to carry him 100 feet or so before we were back at the car.  Every time  

seals on the rocks at Patrick's Point

we come here and see these trees again, I’m amazed again.  I know what they look like, I know how big they are, but the diffuse light, the soaring height, the huge trunks are shocking every time.  Oscar fell asleep soon after hitting the car seat and we were able to hit the redwood stores and find our redwood buddha that was too expensive for us 8 years ago.  We headed back to Kim and James’ for mimosas, great steaks and a dinner that had everyone in bed by 9pm.  It’s a school night you know…..