One Great Vacation · 16 September 2012
Our family has had a bunch of great vacations, but the one to southern Oregon / northern California and the redwood forest has been one of the best so far.
My wife, The Mindboggling Mrs. Miyoshi, has long claimed that the beaches in Oregon are the best beaches. She has even gone so far as to say they are the only real beaches. After a few days there, I almost agree.
The climate in northern California is warmer than Washington, but cooler than Southern California. The boys could care less about the air temperature anyway, so they enjoyed the surf and sand. I do not worry about the cool water and air since I just like to build sand castles and other sculptures. My wife and I like the fact that there are no vehicles on the beach like in Washington and that there are not as many people as there are in Southern California. I hate to admit it, but The Mindboggling Mrs. Miyoshi might be right about the Oregon beaches being the best. (Even though technically, we were in the very northern tip of California.)
Besides the beach, we went to the Redwood Forest. Who would have thought that trees could be so interesting? Then again, seeing the oldest and tallest living things on the planet should impress anybody. Even Thing 3, our eleven-year old, who claims only to like video games had a good time at the Redwood Forest. Thing 2 had a great time. He wanted pictures on large dead falls, branches, trees, and all things redwood. He did not seem the typical high school boy wanting to separate himself from his parents. We all had a great time walking the couple mile loop that we thought was 0.2 miles. (The Mindboggling Mrs. Miyoshi was a trooper and walked the whole way without complaining even though she had an injured ankle.) In hindsight, we should have heeded the warning and taken a trail map. Of course, that would have meant we had seen the warning and trail maps beforehand. Regardless, when it was all over we were glad we went on such a fantastic loop where we saw majestic tree after majestic tree. Words truly cannot describe the Redwood Forest. And pictures do not do it justice either.
The exclamation point of the trip was watching the sun set over the Pacific Ocean. It was chilly but peaceful. The boys were running around in the surf yet still stopped occasionally to take in the beauty of the setting sun. The Mindboggling Mrs. Miyoshi and I were taking pictures of the sun, the boys, and each other taking pictures of the boys and the sun and each other. The scenery and the company were accentuated by the vastness of the majestic Pacific Ocean. I drank it all in and decided that the only thing that could have made it better was sharing it with our whole family.
Our family has had some great vacations and I am sure we will enjoy many more to come. But the trip to the beach and the Redwood Forest was surely one of the best so far.
© 2012 Michael T. Miyoshi
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When did Thing 3 get another year older? Thought he was still 11….
— Mindboggling · 19 September 2012, 15:06 ·