Apple Cider Vinegar & Honey. My Mom's daily drink. It's usually mine, until I run out and then it can take me forever to mix up the next batch. Which is what happened in this case. So I get a sinus headache that rivals any migraine you've ever had. Before I went on, “The Juice” full-time, I had a bout of headaches so bad that a couple of doctors were looking into, “Cluster headaches.” Well, that's not what it is. Even I get fooled once in a while, I had one last 5 or 6 days a couple of years ago and I went to the doctor to get checked for a sinus infection. He said yes and wrote the scrip but on the way from his office to the drug store I blew the headache ending golf ball sized gob of snot that had been causing me all the pain. I know... TMI. Just wanted you to understand how my trip to the Redwoods has been so far. Today is my last day here, I'm out of allergy/cold meds. At least I finally mixed up The Juice last night but it will take a few days before that starts working again. Mom always used Heinz vinegar and whatever honey was on sale. A couple of years ago I switched to the Bragg's vinegar and for about the past year I have been using the raw, unfiltered honey. If you suffer from allergies or sinus headaches, you really owe it to yourself to mix up a batch of this stuff and drink a little bit every day. I believe my Mom's mix was a cup each of the vinegar and honey in a half gallon pitcher of water and she would drink a small juice glass every morning. I usually mix it in a bottle of some sort (a water bottle with a chug removed for the vinegar and honey will work), make it much stronger and just take little swigs.
So there are these trees here. Really really big trees. One of the first things I did when I got here was go to the Ranger's lecture about the park happening at the visitor center a frisbees throw from my campsite. He spent 45 minutes trying to make the National and State parks (the Redwoods are the only place the two organizations work together) sound as awesome as he can, what it really comes down to is what an incredible bummer (his word) it is that it only took us stupid humans a blink of an eye to cut down 97% of a forest jam packed trees that were thousands of years old. The ones that are left are truly spectacular... But 97%. And the only reason it wasn't 100% is because a small group of people got together to, “Save the Redwoods” and started buying up property and getting the government to start making the parks with it. In the end, they saved 3%. There's more than 3% of the land that belongs to the parks, but it was logged so they call it, “Second Growth” forest. They actually had to re-log some of that because there were too many trees all growing at the same rate (and all in straight rows).
Anyway... Stout Grove. Home of the Stout tree. One bigass tree. I went across the footbridge yesterday and walked around for a while, took a bunch of pictures. Headed back today for the guided ranger tour but the footbridge had been packed away for the winter.
--
This brings up a whole nother aspect of this trip that I just realized is working out slightly better than last years trip. Namely that I seem to be one of the very last people that is getting to do certain things. Half of Whistler's Bend Disc Golf Course basically closed after the first round I played there, the course lost two holes every day I was camped there. Which, of course, is WAY better than last year when the government shutdown had all the cool parks along my route closed. Not to mention going from Utah to Kansas City for deep fried french toast and home made corned beef hash only to find the place I had seen on tv at my sister's house had gone out of business a year prior. Pulled into the first campground I saw in Tahoe only to be told that they were closing that day, just there to board the place up.
--
All the cool hiking trails are on the other side of the river so I spent the day nursing the headache, wandering the campground and, as usual for a month and a half into living in it, still settling into the RV and cleaning up after Burning Man.
Spent a bit of time painting while I was there. Yes, past tense, this is an editorial recap of my time in Jed Smith State and National Parks. I moved on a week ago today. First time I've had good internet to post this, good lesson, park next to the office if you want good wifi, not on the outlying edges of the park. Jed Smith is definitely a park I would like to return to in both Summer and Winter to see what it's like at it's extremes. Not to mention getting to do more of the hikes. The trails out here are spectacular.
Time to post this and go write Crescent City while I sit here with my laundry.
Oh laundry... You never ending pain in the ass! Whether it's the Vogue or something else, one of these days I'm going to have the washer/dryer combo unit in the RV/camper. Granted, that means I still have to put them away... With a single unit I can't get my clean clothes out of the dryer and throw the dirties in the washer, but still...
No comments:
Post a Comment