After getting our new tow vehicle also known as a “toad”, we wanted to get out into the wilderness as well as try out our new system. Jeff’s Uncle Johnny told us that if we were in the Redwood area, it was a must that we stop by Prairie Creek State Park. He had camped there a while back and knowing our “thirst” for real nature, he suggested that we might enjoy the setting. Prairie Creek State Park is about 60 miles north of Eureka so we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to test out our new setup.
Once you pass Eureka, the area become very rural as you head even further north towards the California/Oregon state border. We stayed mainly on the 101 (even though I would have been glad to travel the 1 all the way up). I have come to notice that drive on the 1 and 101 stay really consistent once you hit Redwood territory in Big Sur. Of course, you get a city break with the San Francisco area, but the Redwoods return after you pass the city of Ukiah. After that it’s Redwoods all the way up. After a couple weeks, it becomes almost overwhelming how many trees are around you. It’s beautiful but for a city person like me, it’s a major change. Nevertheless, it was wonderful to be in such a fresh environment.
We joined an RV camping club affiliated with Camping World called Camp Club USA. Once you join, you are allowed to camp at campsites across the nation at half off with some restrictions. The restrictions being you might have a time limit on how long you can stay and sometimes there are days that you can’t stay (at the discounted rate) like holidays and sometimes weekends. We actually used this club membership for the first time when we decided to camp and spend Christmas in Klamath, California which is about 10 miles north of Prairie Creek. We didn’t want to stay at Prairie Creek at that time (even though they have four campgrounds within the park). Because the weather was so cold, we had to have electric hook-ups to keep us warm in the coach.
For future camp trips, Prairie Creek offers 4 campgrounds smack dab in the middle of the reserve. It’s really such a beautiful place!! I swore to myself that we would stay at one of these campgrounds when the weather permits us. There are two that stand out to me. One is called Elk Prairie where you can camp directly across the Giant Elk feeding grounds.
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| Wild Elk resting under a tree by the Ranger station |
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| More Wild Elk |
The other is Gold’s Beach Campground where you can camp directly on the beach. I couldn't get a picture of the beach campground since the road to get there was closed but I did manage to Google some photos of Fern Canyon and Gold's Bluff Beach. SOOO Gorgeous!
Anyway, it’s fun too because each campsite comes equipped with a bear box so you might get the off-chance of seeing some wild life!
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| Fern Canyon |
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| Gold's Bluff Beach |
Our campground was located in Klamath California. Klamath is famous for it’s fishing of Salmon and Steelhead in the Klamath River. It’s also famous for it’s odd road attractions on the 101 route to Oregon. Again we wanted something somewhat interesting to wake up to, so we landed on Kamp Klamath.
Based on Internet photos and other reviews, we thought that this place would be perfect for us. Right on the Klamath River… trees everywhere…. "access" to the beach…. Sounds perfect right?
The reality of it was that it was on the river but there were 10-foot waterweeds blocking our view as well as any pathway to the river. There weren’t any Redwoods around, but some other type of predominant tree that I couldn’t name. As for the beach, it was lucky that we had the “Toad” because there was NO WAY that Cedar and I would have been able to walk that far to get there. However, the people who ran the campground were very nice and gave us a dozen fresh eggs from the free-range chickens that were permanent “inhabitants” of the campground. I enjoyed this act of hospitality because I dearly miss MY chickens who are safe with Jeff’s parents and sister (Savannah) back at home.
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| Local Chickens that lived at the campground!! :) |
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| Garden Beds.. there was also a goat that lived behind it |
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| The Fun Bus!! The Trailer looking thing was a homemade Chicken coop!! |
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| The Klamath tree that populated the area |
The campsite was pretty basic enough. There was electric, water, gas, and satellite hook ups. It was awesome because a set up like that would normally set you back 30-40 bucks, but we were able to get it for 15 due to the membership. The December weather up there is pretty grey, but I hear that that location is very popular in the spring and fall when the weather is a little better and the fish are ample in the river.
We were glad to have our little car aka “Fast Eddie” since there wasn’t much to hike or explore within the vicinity of our campsite. Outside of the campsite was a "Coastal Drive" that we took advantage of. Our first stop was at an old Yurok living headquarters posted with a front yard consisting of empty sandy beaches where the Klamath River emptied into the ocean. It was pretty cool to see the old abandon buildings where the Yuroks used to live. As our tour of these ancient ground continued we were disappointed with the city for allowing a port-a-potty to be posted right by the ancient Yurok ceremonial grounds!! If that wasn’t bad enough, we saw a group of hoodlums (not pictured) hanging out in one of the old Yurok buildings.
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| The Coastal Drive |
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| Our first stop |
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| Cedar in his new camo boots!!!! :) |
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| "Wait up guys!!!" |
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| The ceremonial grounds with the port-a-potty near it |
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| Old Yurok grounds |
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| Another cool Yurok building |
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| Where the Klamath River met the ocean... |
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| Another view of the rivermouth |
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| Can't stay away from the water ;) |
As we continued to explore, we found a path that lead to the beach. As we entered the path, we heard what seemed to be a gun firing shots that sounded pretty close to us!! That prompted us to get the heck out of there and back to the safety of our car.
Next stop was a lookout point. The views from that spot were incredible!! Even though the skies were grey and cloudy, you could still see all the way down the coast.
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| On the way to the lookout point... |
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| Ocean!!! |
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| Family Photo! |
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| Cedar didn't want to leave that spot..... |
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| Gorgeous view from the lookout point |
After we enjoyed the last view spot, we were nearing the end of our “Coastal Tour”. Well…. at least that’s as far as the road would take us for the season. I guess you could drive all the way to Prairie Creek by this coastal road, but they close it during wet seasons. I'm guessing the road is slippery and they don't want you to drive off the cliff or something. The Coastal Tour was a bit short and we wanted to continue our Klamath exploration. At a fork in the road, we saw a sign for Alder Camp.
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| "Camp Alder" |
Since we weren’t that stoked on our campsite, we thought we might check out this “campsite” to see if it was any more scenic than Kamp Klamath. As we neared the entrance we paused to read this sign….
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| Sketch |
Um… yea…. We were camping within 5 miles of a prison camp!!!! Sketch.
Okay… no big deal! Like what are the odds of a prisoner escaping on our short visit of 3 days…right?
We put this in the back of our minds and continued our drive to the actual town of Klamath. It’s pretty quiet in this part of California. I tried to Google information on the town of Klamath but not much came up. All that came up was the infamous “Trees of Mystery” and “Drive-Thru Tree”. Of course it was a short drive to these exhibits so we drove over. We also got to see the downtown of Klamath. Apparently, Klamath is a reservation for the Yurok Indians. It was interesting to drive through the town.
When we reached our sight seeing destination, the “Trees of Mystery” was closed. (Why on earth would you close on Christmas Eve?!) I was looking forward to the Trees of Mystery because apparently you pay a nominal fee to go in a sky gondola and take a ride through some of the tallest trees in the world!
But we managed to get pictures of the giant Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe.
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| Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe |
On the way back we drove by the Drive-Thru Tree.
The exhibit was open but there was no one around to take our money. There WAS a slot where you could drop money in (which was 5 bucks) but we didn’t have any cash and we wanted to keep the “good karma train” running so we decided to not just barge it. There were some cool emus across the street that we were able see.
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| EMU!!! |
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| Up close Emu shot... |
So, we DID spend Christmas here in Klamath even though I was a bit hesitant after discovering our neighboring “camp/prison”. Here are some pics of Christmas morning.
That’s pretty much it for Klamath. Our first Christmas on the road was a fun, adventurous, and full of love! We missed our traditional family filled Christmas but there’s always next year… if we aren’t still traveling by then! ;)
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| Wild goats! |
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| More coast photos! |
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| A wet drive through Prairie Creek |
Christine! This is Stephanie Dunn from high school! I am absolutely loving your adventure blog and all the pics of your adorable family. My brother used to live in Arcata (next door to Eureka) so we've spent a lot of time up there and have totally fallen in love with the area. (And let me say, the drive through tree was totally over-rated and definitely not worth risking ticking off karma as was the mystery tree park (actually just creepy...)- Paul Bunyan was by far the best part!) So happy you guys are having such a fabulous time and keep the posts coming! :-)
ReplyDeleteHey Stephanie!! Thanks for reading!! We are having a ton of fun touring the country! Arcata and Eureka are really pretty! It's just different up there. :)
ReplyDeleteWe had friends up there so we were able to stay with them in the backyard for a week and a half.
Haha! I figured driving through the tree was just novelty and the trees did seem kinda creepy! I just kept thinking BIG FOOT!!! :)