Vacation in California 2013

I didn’t take my phone to Isle Royale because it wouldn’t work there, except as a camera, but I didn’t want to use it as a camera because it’s a pretty old phone. I was absolutely certain the battery wouldn’t last five days. Even if I brought a power bank, I was pretty sure my phone would burn through every recharge before I left the island.

Luckily, I still have an actual camera, a very small one, and even though it was made in the early days of digital photography, I was confident it would hold a charge for more than a week. As a bonus, it takes pretty decent photos.

When I brought it back and downloaded all the photos in its memory, I found it had a whole lot of photos from earlier vacations still stored in it.

Back in September 2013, My Darling B and I took a vacation in California. We wanted to ride the cable cars in San Francisco, see the Golden Gate, then travel north along the coast to eventually visit Redwood National Park. We got to do nearly all that and more.

I wrote about it (links at the bottom of this post, in case you’re interested) but didn’t post many photos, for some reason. Here are just a few of the highlights:

My Darling B and I on the shore of the Pacific Ocean

The Golden Gate and its eponymous bridge. We drove across it a few days after I took this photo, when we were headed north.

the Golden Gate, featuring the eponymous bridge

Not every street in San Francisco looks like this, but I still think it’s mind-boggling that any of them do.

a typical street in San Francisco, descending a hill at a thirty-degree angle

My Darling B points out our location on a visit to Fisherman’s Wharf.

My Darling B pointing at a map of the waterfront in San Francisco

I’ve wanted to visit Redwoods National Park for most of my adult life. Unfortunately, Congress was having a budget fight at the same time we visited, so the national parks were closed. We visited the state park instead.

My Darling B and I standing beside the welcome sign of Humboldt Redwoods State Park

Redwood trees are so tall it’s impossible to capture their size in photographs. I tried every way I could think of to convey their dizzying height, but in every photo they look like pretty average trees.

the author standing beneath a towering redwood tree

The outermost ring is dated 1928: “California state park system established” and the innermost ring is dated 1000: “Vikings discover North America”

yours truly seated in front of a section of an ancient redwood tree

The one photo I took that almost captures how really big redwood trees are: My Darling B standing under the roots of a redwood that toppled onto its side many decades ago.

My Darling B standing beneath the roots of a redwood which toppled many years before

We camped overnight in a park nearby. A herd of elk wandered through the campground in the early morning.

elk wandering through the campground we stayed in

We paid a visit to the Mount Shasta Brewing Co. I loved this place and hope it’s still there. This is where I got my “Try Legal Weed” cap (the brewery is in a town named Weed).