Day 7 was when we finally hit Redwoods National Park, one of my most anticipated stops of the trip. We left Eureka with a rare full nights sleep and spent most of the morning driving around admiring the famous redwood groves. We drove along the “Avenue of the Giants” scenic route then explored the park, stopping at several stops to hike around and explore.
Looks like something out of a Star Wars movie…
One of the sites I found intriguing was an old WWII radar station on the coastline that was built to look like a farm house, but inside housed radar equipment and two .50 caliber anti-aircraft guns.
I couldn’t quite figure out where the .50 cals would have been housed
After spending most of the day in Redwoods we continued onward, into Oregon! We finished the longest leg of our trip, being welcomed to The Beaver State with a giant sign proclaiming “WEED!” Welcome to Oregon indeed.
We stopped at a Fred Meyer for groceries and followed the 101 all the way up to Coos Bay. The Van Alert contact we had planned on staying with was out of the country so as a backup plan we stayed the night at Three Rivers Casino in Florence. At this point we had kind of experienced it all in regards to places we’d stayed so far – Airbnb, campsites, parking lots, pullouts, Van Alert, and now a Casino. It was actually a nice place to stay the night. After checking in with security we parked in the back of a massive, and nicely level, RV-specific section. The bathrooms were nice and the Casino even provides free water/soda/coffee for guests. It cost nothing to stay there and use their facilities – I think they just hope you’ll gamble. Being a Saturday night, there were a lot of bikers and people coming and going so it was a bit noisy, but things quieted down about 10-11pm and we enjoyed a good nights rest.
I’ve got to add…these Redwoods were the perfect setting for some killer Van photo-ops.
Ignore that I drove this whole trip on my mismatched spare