We weren't too excited abut staying at Redwood Trails because in the info we had, it didn't seem like there was too much to do there, except visit our niece, Megan, who goes to
Humboldt University 30 miles away. Well, I ended up taking over 100
pictures, so you can see, we were pretty busy.

Redwood Trails park is famous for two things. One is the "Little Red School House Museum." It was closed while we were there, but we got to go through it ten years ago when we stayed at this park. We had forgotten that we stayed there until we saw it. We rented one of their trailers for a couple of nights when Terry and I took a vacation down the coast. My mom was supposed to go with us, but she got sick while she was in Portland with my brother, so we had to leave her there.

The other thing Redwood Trails campground is famous for is the
Roosevelt elk that hang out at the park. It is a protected area for the elk and they are simply amazing! They were in the rutting season so it was exciting watching the bulls try to compete for the cows. This was one of the smaller bulls. He didn't seem to be too successful in wooing many of the cows away from the big bull. There was a continual succession of vehicles stopping for people to take pictures when the elk were out front in the park. The elk didn't seem to mind the vehicles, but if a person got too close, they would take off.

The wooded part of the park was closed down because of large electricity bills, so we parked out in the open part of the park. That was okay, because we wanted all of the sun we could get. It was in the 60's most of the days. The back of our 5
th wheel, where the big window is, faced a pasture with over 30 horses that they rented out for rides. They often shared their pasture with all of the elk. I took movies of the elk jumping over the fence into the pasture.

There is a really pretty "lake" in the park. We would call these "ponds" at home. With a permit from the park, you could fish in it, but we didn't.

This bull elk, one of the small ones, was right outside out door when I took this picture.

He was pretty cooperative while I took some "zoomed-in" pictures. I think I took about 50 pictures of the elk. The bulls would bugle all day and all night. One morning about 5:00, I could hear something rubbing against our picnic table. I got up and looked outside. It was just beginning to get light. Our 5
th wheel was totally surrounded by about 30 elk, including the big bull. It was too dark for pictures and I didn't want to scare them away by opening the door. I woke Terry up and we went from window to window looking at them. It was just amazing.

Right across the road from the park was a road leading to the beach. We rode our bike down there one day, and walked down another day.

The morning we walked to the beach, we saw these big ugly slugs everywhere. They were like worms that come out on the roads and sidewalks when it rains, only they were much larger than even
night crawlers. Later on, our niece, Megan, told us they were Banana slugs and they are everywhere. She said there is even a college in the area that has them as their mascot! Ugh!


The beach we went to was kind of a scary beach because it had large, loud waves. There were warning signs that there was a lot of undertow in the waves and to not play in the water. You could actually see the waves pull gobs of sand back with them as they went out. I waded just a little ways out in the water, but got surprised by a wave and got pretty wet.

We walked along the beach and some people were there looking for
agates, which are rocks that are popular for polishing and making jewelry out of. Terry even took his shoes off!

We walked down to where the waves were beating against some rocks and splashing way up. It was a beautiful beach, but not one that you would want to go out into the waves too far!

Terry is always looking for treasures, and he usually finds some. But that day, all he found was a baby's lost pacifier!

There were some really neat plants that grew in the area. They would be really pretty in flower arrangements. They were really feathery and were almost a purple color. They were everywhere in big clusters.

When we came back from the beach, the large elk herd was all around the entrance road into the campground and cars were lined up to take pictures of them. Some of them are very large--as big or bigger than a large cow.

I couldn't believe I got a picture of this calf nursing! It is probably the only time I will ever get to see this again. And these are not like elk in a elk farm, like some we have in Idaho. These are actually wild elk, but are protected from being shot. Sometimes there gets to be so many in the park that they have to move some of them to a different area because they get to be such a nuisance.

They don't seem to have to mow the grass around the campground because the elk keep it eaten down. They would hang around close one day an then be gone for a couple of days, but then come back.

Here are a couple of the smaller bucks with the few cows they had enticed to join them. One day a cow went running by our fifth wheel and her tongue was hanging out she was so tired. Right behind her was one of the smaller bulls. It kind of looked like, to us, that he had gotten her away from the large herd and was "on the run" with her.

Our niece, Megan, goes to school at Humboldt State University in
Arcata, CA. It is about 30 miles away from where we were camping. She is a nursing student and runs on their cross county and their track teams. She does really well. She is a straight-A student and is their star runner on the track teams. She also has a part-time job!

One night she made time to visit with us for a while, go have pizza, and show us around campus. We posted this picture of her in her "clean" kitchen so her mom could see it!

We had to have a picture of her and us in her living room in front of a tapestry they had on the wall . Of course, she is a special niece to us and I am sure that we are her "favorite aunt and uncle!"

Then, on Sunday, Megan came to our campground to have a BBQ with us. She got to see all of the elk. She had heard about them, but I don't think she had seem them so close before.

Right behind Megan was the big bull and his cows. I had to zoom in on him for this picture. His antlers are huge! One morning he was rubbing them on a little tree just down from out 5
th wheel and I thought he was going to knock over the tree! He will loose his antlers soon, probably somewhere in the park, and will grow new ones. It would sure be fun to find them.

We took Megan down to "our" beach because I wanted to get a picture of her on this piece of driftwood that was there. Her roommates were supposed to come with her and have the BBQ with us, but they ended up not coming. I thought it
would be a fun place to take their picture.

Then Megan took
our picture on the driftwood log. We are not quite as photogenic as Megan, but it is still a cool place for a picture.
We had a good time at Redwood Trails. It is not one of our Thousand Trails campgrounds, but it is one of the affiliate campgrounds that we can stay at, for a small fee. We are now off to Lake Minden where we will be close to Yuba City where Terry's oldest sister and family live. It will be fun to see them. Well, we are on the road again!
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