Reno calls itself the biggest little city in the world. I think the sign maker made a typo and put biggest where it should have read crappiest. We stayed the night in a daily, weekly, monthly type of joint without knowing so when we booked it. Surprise and great thanks goes to hotels.com. The manager of The Showboat Inn was guy named Angelo and he turned out to be pretty cool. He kind of looked like Chong, but not so ethnic looking and with less facial hair. Angelo was super laid back and made the place feel not so cheap.
When we parked the car I was a little worried about the stuff on our roof, but alls well that ends well, because we left the "hotel" unscathed and bathed. The room was surprisingly very clean and much nicer on the inside than the exterior led you to believe. All in all despite being fairly crappy at first, the hotel turned out alright.
After leaving Reno we headed diagonally towards the California coast again. Our first pit stop was at Lassen Volcanic National Park. Lassen was a really pretty park with very interesting geology. We climbed the mountainous highways to see snow scattered about the woods along the roadway. As we moved deeper into the park, we noticed even more snow. We started to worry. Besides the snow, Lassen had a lot to offer since it was a volcanic park. It reminded me of a mini version of Yellowstone. Unfortunately, because of all the snow they've had, a lot of the interesting hikes we wanted to do were closed off. The geyser and another area of painted dunes complete with a mini volcanic lava stream were both unavailable. We did however get to see some stuff along the way as well as smell the sweet sulfur as we walked around.
We drove through the park and decided to stay the night in one of its campgrounds. Luckily the snow subsided as we went further into the park. The campsite had a decent enough setup and opened our eyes to a hidden wonder of choosing a sleeping area. It turns out that despite the first inclination of rocks/gravel being uncomfortable, it was quite the opposite. The loose rocks were much like river stones and spread out as we laid down creating a nice landing for our backs.
Soon after eating dinner, we found ourselves in a race to get everything cleaned up as quickly as possible, as thunder struck and the skies started to look angry. We made it into the tent just as raindrops started to fall. Soon after those couple of drops, buckets of rain crashed onto the ground. Some people across the way were in the middle of setting up their camp when all of this happened. Needless to say, they got drenched. If the rain wasn't enough, the next stage of the storm was hail. The hail was easily bigger than peas and belted the area for a good two hours before the storm let up.
Jen and I had bought our sweet Coleman tent around five years ago. It was a great deal, as it was on clearance for about twenty bucks or so. It has lasted through rain previously while other people’s tents have leaked away. We were quite confident that we had nothing to worry about when the storm hit. Little did we know that it would rain and hail quite so hard and for quite so long.
About forty five minutes into the storm we noticed a few drops of water creeping in along the bottom of one of the seams. That in turn started a chain reaction as three of the four sides started to drip along the same seam. We MacGuyvered a fix that included holding up the seams, with shoes among other objects, to allow for gravity to push the water down, as our problem lied within water pooling up on the seams along the outside of the tent. We stuck some towels, notebook paper, and dirty clothes along the floor below the seams to collect any water that made it through. All in all, after five years the tent held up pretty darn good. We stayed dry the whole night. If anything, the rainstorm was just a warning for us to get some weather seal and do a touch-up.
The next day brought us to the California coast and into Redwood National Forest. I imagined the area to be like Sherwood Forest with giant trees or for it to even look like Endor from Star Wars. The Redwood National Forest did not disappoint. Despite being smaller than I had imagined, the forest that is, the park was stunning and the trees were magnificent. The redwoods were bigger than most any trees I had seen anywhere else, as they towered over everything in their shadow. It is one thing to glance at them from a distance or look at them in pictures, but it is not until you physically stand right next to one that you can feel the presence of the beasts. They shoot up to the sky with such stature that it makes you realize just how small you really are. With this great wonder of the botanist world we closed the book on California as we started to head up to the great and wonderful Oregon coast.
Random Facts
Times we've hit our heads on the wagon's hatch = 13
Types of shoulders witnessed on the road driving = 5
1. Low Shoulder
2. Rough Shoulder
3. No Shoulder
4. Soft Shoulder
5. Cold Shoulder
Days Camped = 6
Best Music for Pretty Scenery
1. Eddie Vedder - Into the Wild Soundtrack
2. Any and All CCR
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