McKinleyville Trip

My brother Justin recently moved himself and his family out to Northern California and so five weeks ago Seth flew out to Provo and we made the 16 hour drive to visit them. The drive was pretty but the only remarkable things were that it rained the entire time and the strong skunk smell of marijunana as we started driving through Humbolt County, CA.

Trinidad Beach

 Over the next week we went on various excursions. The kids were still in school so Seth and I would go on solo trips during the day with a big group outing later in the evening. Seth and I also cycled through all the kids giving them special trips with us each night we were there.

Trinidad Beach (this is not a gravestone)

I unfortunately did not take many pictures but in addition to the below Seth and I explored downtown Eureka and saw some meth-heads sell stolen merchandise, we went to a tiny cheese factory in Loleta, I learned all about Animal Jam and my nieces' obsession over it, and picked up my nieces and nephews from school every day.

Riverbed in the Avenue of the Giants

The second tallest totem poll, someone in Canada took the crown.

Fern Canyon, a really cool hike through a steep riverbed where the walls were literally covered in ferns. There were also caterpillars EVERYWHERE; carpeting the walls and piling up in big piles of corpses in the river)

On the last day we went to Agate Beach and watched the sunset.

One of my neices asked if we could go to Moonstone Beach for her special evening because "everyone gets along at Moonstone Beach." It was in fact a magical place.

We had a fire on the beach fulfilling one of my dreams.

The trip was a nice mix of relaxation and doing things and I'd happily visit again. Apologies should be said to Justin and Jen as I did not take a single picture of them even though they kindly hosted us.

For good measure here is a cute video of my niece Wren playing on the beach after the camp fire.