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Published: August 27th 2010
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Crater Lake
It usually looks bluer than this. We’re sorry that we couldn’t get to you sooner but now we’re staying in one hotel for a reasonable amount of time (3 days!) we can get some blogging done.
As soon as we got up we visited the fort Vancouver (in Washington State not Canada) and there we did a ‘kids dig’ where we dug up items that had already been found around fort Vancouver. After that we drove to Crater Lake which took about 5 hours. We arrived late so we just had supper and went to bed in the Crater Lake lodge, the hotel we were staying in.
The next day we got a better look at Crater Lake and it really is beautiful (see the pictures for details). We got our best views after we climbed Garfield peak. The walk up was steep and tiresome but the views (sort of) made up for it. After that we drove to Annie Creek, also in Crater Lake national park and did the Annie Creek trail which was surprisingly fun, partly because we found foot long chunks of pumice which we threw into the creek (and they actually floated!). After that we drove to the Oregon Caves, which are near
Us on a log
We told you these trees got big. the border with California. We just managed to find our hotel, the Château at The Oregon Caves. It is surprisingly good, mostly helped by that a stream runs through the dining room inside it.
The next day we got up early so we could go to the Oregon Caves. The Oregon Caves are Marble caves, unlike most other caves which are limestone. Because they are marble this means they dissolve less easily so the Caves are more narrow than normal limestone Caves. The Oregon Caves were surprisingly enjoyable for somewhere we just randomly chose to stay a night in because we felt like spending another day in Oregon. After the Oregon Caves we drove California. There we drove past loads of Redwoods, including the avenue of the giants! The first big Tree we stopped at was the very inventively named ‘Big Tree’. But it was big. At 23 ft in diameter and 276 ft in height this was one big tree. And they get bigger. We tried to look for the former world’s tallest tree but we would have had to do a 10 mile hike to get to it. After that we entered the Avenue of the giants and
The Founders Tree
This tree is massive. saw how enormous the Redwoods were. We stopped off at the ‘Founders tree’, which is one of the world’s tallest trees. Standing at a mighty 346.1 ft tall (the tallest is 346.5) and 12.5 ft in diameter it was an incredible tree. We kept on driving through the avenue of the giants until we got to a drive thru tree. The drive thru tree was awesome and amazingly it the hole was natural and the tree is still alive. Then we drove to Garberville (thanks for the recommendation Christopher ) and stayed the night there.
The next day we left immediately to go to have an ice cream in Mendocino (thanks again Christopher) and it lived up to our expectations. We also bought a painting at one of the many art galleries there. We then powered on to San Francisco. Our tom-tom satnav took us on a route that included crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. We then checked into the Hilton San Francisco and went to bed.
The next day we walked to the Wells Fargo museum. On the way we spent ages not buying a samurai sword in Chinatown. Once we arrived at the Wells Fargo museum we
had fun because there was a stagecoach you could go in so you could feel what it was like to ride on a stagecoach. Then we took cable cars to the cable car museum, where we saw the pulley mechanism for the cables. (If you don’t know what cable cars are, google -’San Francisco Cable cars’. ) After that we had supper at the Hard Rock Cafe, this one was packed with music memorabilia, so we didn’t see the significance of the items.
The next day we hired bikes and cycled across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was awesome and Honor was on a tag-along with our dad. Once we had got to Sausolito (the town across the golden gate bridge we had lunch and took a ferry back to San Francisco. After that we took the ferry to Alcatraz. The tour guide in Alcatraz is amazing and so is the island itself. When you are there you can see how so many people were driven mad from being imprisoned there. It would have been incredibly frustrating to be able to see and hear San Francisco yet not be able to go there. It was very cool. After that
Alcatraz
The building furthest back is the Cellhouse. we had supper in a posh restaurant for dinner and made some wax models. They were cool. H+T out.
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Henry
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Redwood City
Nice blog. I'm glad you liked the redwoods. We have a cousin, Anne Vaughan, who lives at 2 Sequoia Way, Redwood City, which is in San Francisco Peninsula. I suggested that they should name the house The Wellingtonias (this being the English word for redwood). I didn't suggest that you look her up as she is in her nineties and has lost her marbles. A chum of mine, who lived in Sausalito, committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate. It was a huge tragedy, and I still miss him. It is a favourite spot for suicides, Americans not being very original. xH.