Adventures of David and Paul: Caves and Redwoods in Southern Oregon and Northern California

For the next leg of our Oregon road trip, we left Crater Lake and began the long drive toward the coast, with several stops planned along the way. We had a late breakfast in Cave Junction at the River Valley Restaurant. It was a nice little family diner. Cave Junction is a small town of just 2,000 people, situated along Hwy 199 where the road to Oregon Caves branches off. Oddly enough, Paul's cousin used to live here!

After lunch we stopped by Taylor's sausage country store then drove up to Oregon Caves National Monument where we had reservations for a tour. The road winds up a mountain, taking about 40 minutes of driving until it dead-ends at the cave. The cave, which is one of the very few marble caves in the US, was established as a national monument in 1909. It's an impressive cave, with some neat formations and several species that are found only here. David was a little caved-out, so he sat this one out and instead hiked to the top of the mountain over the cave to take in the views.

Big portions - and a logging truck in the background!

In the late 1800s and early 1900s people used to write on the cave walls.

One of the big rooms in the cave.

There were some impressive formations in the cave!

Some steep sections of the cave had a lot of stairs.

It's just as pretty above as below (if not more so).

Leaving the caves, we continued driving southwest, and made a stop at the Darlingtonia botanical trail. It's a small loop trail just off the side of the road that goes past a grove of carnivorous California pitcher plants, also known as the cobra lily. The plant only exists in southwest Oregon and Northern California, so it was cool to see hundreds of this unique species.

Arriving in Smith River, California, just south of the Oregon border, we checked into our AirBnB. We would be spending three nights here, so we splurged on a little cottage right on the ocean - and it was worth it! We had great views overlooking the beach, and got to observe the changing weather patterns: mostly cloudy from the marine layer, but with a few sunny hours here and there. After settling in, we drove north to Brookings and had dinner at Pacific Sushi, and finished the day with a walk on the beach at sunset and some time in the hot tub on our deck.

Pitcher plants have translucent "windows" that the bugs try to escape through.

A field of pitcher plants.

The amazing ocean view from our AirBnB. It usually wasn't this sunny!

Ramen time.

The beach below our cabin was very peaceful.

Our AirBnB was in this row of cabins directly overlooking the Pacific.

The next day was our "redwoods" day. Redwood National Park is unique because it's jointly operated by the National Park Service and California Department of Parks and Recreation. The area is a UNESCO world heritage site, and preserves the tallest trees on earth. We woke up relatively early and went straight to Stout Memorial Grove, which is part of Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park. It was good to get here early and enjoy a peaceful little hike, taking in the stillness of the forest before it got crowded later in the day. Our next stop was just down the road, the newly renovated low-impact Grove of the Titans trail. This was a really great hike with plenty of views of redwoods and good information on interpretive signs. We would definitely recommend this trail.

David with some very tall trees.

A little bridge just off the Stout grove trail.

It's hard to get a sense of how tall the trees really are here...

The water was extraordinarily clear.

One of the biggest trees we saw.

Path to the Grove of Titans.

Did we say enough times that the trees are huge?

A cool looking tree.

Part of the trail was a tunnel created by a fallen redwood.

The heart of the Grove of the Titans.

After these two little hikes, we drove into Crescent City, California and had lunch at SeaQuake Brewing. We spent a little time exploring the area, including the city's light house, and an area with lot of very loud sea lions, before making a quick stop at a grocery story and heading back to the AirBnB. We finished of the day by driving up in to Oregon to Harris Beach State Park around low tide and checking out the tide pools. We saw plenty of anemones, starfish, and even some crabs.