Road Trip 2009: Leg 3

The 3rd leg of our trip takes us through Northern CA, the Redwood National Forest, up near Seattle, WA and the Rocky Reach Dam.

Before we even left Susanville, we took this fun video of Sallie with her head out the window--just enjoying being a dog!

The following pictures are from the Whiskeytown State Park. We stopped here for a bathroom break and decided to make lunch while we were stopped. We didn't even need to leave the parking lot; it was so beautiful!

This was neat! There are buoys out in the lake that normally we think of as a warning to keep boaters away from swimmers , but these buoys are actually used to keep warm water away from cold water. This apparently helps to protect the Chinook salmon.

Along our drive, we found ourselves following a particularly beautiful river. After a couple of hours, we decided we needed to stop and take some pictures. Here is a short video from our vista point.

As we were driving to the Redwood National Forest, we suddenly looked out and found ourselves at the Pacific Ocean. We hadn't really made the connection before that we would be driving right along the coast. We couldn't resist pulling off the highway and driving a scenic route.

Stairway down to a little beach

Surfers

I just love flowers, so I had Jeff take a few pictures of some beautiful ones along the coast.

We made it to the Redwood National Forest. Just before entering the forest, we came upon this castle carved out of a Redwood. We couldn't resist stopping. Jeff actually took quite a few pictures, but here is one of the entire thing. We're pretty sure it was a fountain; although the water wasn't running. Such detail went into this carving; it was stunning!

I loved the bright yellow flowers against the green foliage.

Sorry for the poor pictures. I'm not very good at taking pictures from a moving car.
We passed quite a few trees like this one. With all the bark removed, it's pretty easy to tell why they're called redwoods. :-)

Just couldn't resist these pale pink pretties.

Here we are hugging a tree. This is a little deceiving because we are not even close to being able to touch each other's hand on the other side of the tree. This tree was HUGE!

Looking up the base of a tree.

The next morning, we made it to Seattle. We drove across a really cool bridge. I wasn't really able to get any good pictures as we were driving, but here are my attempts.

Looking out the front at the beginning of the bridge

Looking out the back at the end of the bridge (again, please excuse the poor photography)

These overpasses were really neat. They were completely covered with trees. I doubt that cars drive on them. Are they built just for looks or are they pedestrian bridges? We don't know.

More from the window as we passed through Seattle

Our final destination before reaching Bridgeport was the Rocky Reach Dam.

Here is the fish ladder that helps the salmon survive the dam.

You can go inside and view the salmon that are swimming through the ladder.

Here are the turbines that generate the energy.

Jeff's hometown is Bridgeport. It's just up the river and home to the Chief Joseph Dam.

The museum had some cool mechanisms where you could create electricity.

And let there be light...

Here is an outside view of a turbine (obviously not in use).

Every year they plant an American flag with flowers.

Stay tuned for the final leg of our road trip. It will include a surprise for Randy's birthday, Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph Dams, Bridgeport Days, and some other fun pictures.