Big A$$ Trees

The last few weeks have taken me from the redwood forests to the gulf stream waters to the… oh wait, that’s not right. But ever since seeing redwood trees here in CA that song has been stuck in my head!

It’s been awhile since I last wrote, so let me start with our Labor Day weekend shenanigans. That Saturday, we picked a nearby state park for me to do my long trail run in. I got a little too distracted by the gorgeous redwood groves and endured some nasty ankle pain as a result. The upside was that my ankle distracted me so much I forgot to worry about the bears, mountain lions, and other beasts of the forest. I made it back in one piece and rewarded myself with (what else) ice cream!

Post-run Gatorade high

In our usual fashion, Owen and I didn’t finalize our plans for Labor Day Weekend until the night before. Finally we settled on Sequoia National Park, a few hours away in CA. As did the other millions of visitors. When we arrived Sunday morning, the park was a nut house! So we got as far away from the crazy as possible and finally found a secluded sequoia grove to hike through. We spent hours trying to get a photograph of sequoias that did them some justice, but our efforts were mostly fruitless. These giant trees are best seen through your own two eyes. That night we disperse camped in a national forest, which basically means we drove down a random dirt road, parked our car, and camped there. Totally legit, totally free. Another group of people camping nearby played country music, so we had some tunes to chill out to as we watched the sun set. Score!

Monday we drove into neighboring Kings Canyon National Park, home to some of the deepest canyons in the country. Also seen in the park: a man wearing a diaper/speedo, the oldest gas station ever (fact check needed here), and some damn beautiful meadows. That night we headed back to the same site we disperse camped at the night before. Owen had packed an old freeze dried meal for us for dinner. He neglected to mention just how old it was. Suggested use by date: 7 YEARS AGO. We cooked it anyway, it tasted nasty (the vegetables had either all turned white or disintegrated), and we ate our next day’s lunch instead. Silver lining: this made our sunset beer taste that much better. I convinced Owen to sleep on our favorite rock without the tent and it paid off: we drifted off under a blanket of the most amazing stars I have ever seen, including several shooting stars. I wish everyone could have seen what we saw.

Tuesday we finally went to the touristy parts of Sequoia National Park now that it had cleared out. We saw the world’s largest tree. My brain could hardly comprehend that, and I was looking right at the thing! We also drove under a fallen sequoia tree and even saw escaped cows in the nearby national forest. As it is every trip we take to somewhere beautiful, I never want to leave but it was made a little easier this time as I was going to Montana the next day!

Wednesday morning was spent in a mad dash doing laundry and packing for my trip to Bozeman, Montana to visit Evan! The flight there was quite an experience. Half the passengers seemed to know each other and my big hiking backpack attracted several comments about there already being snow near Bozeman. I arrived late Wednesday night, and while it wasn’t snowing, it was cooler than I was used to. Thursday Evan and I dove right in, starting with brunch in downtown Bozeman, a hike in the nearby national forest to this amazing waterfall, and a delicious homemade dinner of Pad Thai and zucchini noodles with pesto. We capped the night off with a movie and none other than SpongeBob SquarePants. I swear that show is better as an adult than as a kid.

The next day we went for a morning trail run and fall was in full swing. I was drinking it up, since I’m not sure if I’ll really get a fall where we are in California. Later that day I had a Skype interview for a job in CA, which seemed to go well. Boxing with Evan beforehand sure didn’t hurt! For dinner we made a delicious dish that consisted of crispy naan topped with pesto, sautéed onions, melted blue cheese, and bacon. I named the dish myself and it’s not actually appropriate enough to print here, but let’s just say it reflects how freaking delicious it is. Even the dogs at the park we ate at wanted some! We spent the night walking through downtown Bozeman with some of Evan’s friends during an event called Art Walk and sampling free drinks and snacks.

Saturday we left early to go backpacking in the nearby Spanish Peaks. I felt like I was on a safari driving there- the road in went through a bison ranch and we saw hundreds, maybe thousands, of bison! We had to stop and wait for several minutes more than once as herds of them crossed the road. Once we finally made it to the trailhead, we put in several miles of hiking. The day actually topped off around 15 miles, even with the hill climbs, a leisurely lakeside lunch, and a few breaks where we basically collapsed on the ground and napped for a few minutes. When we finally arrived at the lake we kind of just laid on some rocks for a while until we gained enough energy to make dinner. As they say, it hurt so good. It was neat to have the place to ourselves, as no one else was camping there and we hadn’t even seen people most of the day.

The next morning we had a leisurely hike back to the car and passed several groups of people out for day hikes. One man said he’d pay me a hundred bucks for my gloves that were dangling from my pack. Another man told Evan to “get out of here with that thing” referring to his big pack. But mostly people asked where we’d been. We actually didn’t know the name of the lake we camped at the night before so we took it in turns answering the question with a vague “lakes…Spanish peaks.” Finally we looked at our map and saw we’d camped at Upper Falls Creek Lake. For the rest of the hike we chanted that aloud so we’d finally be able to tell people where we came from, but no one else asked! Later that day we vegged out with ice cream, more SpongeBob, dinner in downtown Bozeman, and a quintessential Montana movie: A River Runs Through It. I left the next morning, and apparently later that day it really did snow in Bozeman.

I’ve been back in CA for over a week now. Owen and I took an impromptu trip to the Pacific Ocean one night after work to see the sunset. News flash: the sun has already set by 8pm now. So instead we walked around the beach in the dark and I imagined crazy sea monsters lurking in the water. This past weekend we went back to the ocean, this time for my long trail run. I started on the beach, ran through redwood forests out to three waterfalls, and finished back at the ocean. Gosh, am I lucky.