Driving along the Pacific coast from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon is maybe one of most stunning road trip routes in America, and one of the most memorable parts along the way is between Eureka and Crescent City in Northern California, the home of the impressive coastal redwoods. It was a really fine day of early summer when I reached Eureka and started to find a sign of Redwood National and State Parks. Since I was not sure what the redwood is, except that it should be a very high tree, so at the beginning I misunderstood that the very high pine and fern trees along the highway were redwood which I already impressed for its height and how dense of the forest was, but I started to noticed that among those dense forests, there was a kind of tree that specially higher than the others with different leaves and branch patterns. When the highway approached the Stone Lagoon and Freshwater Lagoon while entered into the Prairie Creek Redwood State Park, the view of redwood forest and the Pacific coast with misty cloud were quite stunning. I stopped at the Freshwater Lagoon to see beautiful wildflowers fields next to the beach, the unique saline bushes and flowers were pretty interesting. My next stop was Lady Bird Johnson Grove, named after US First Lady. When I entered into the grove inner area and really saw the gigantic redwood trees for the first time along the easy hiking trails, I was extremely impressed for this natural wonder.

I continued my journey to Crescent City, along the highway, there were more and more redwoods, and the forest became denser and denser that car’s front light was mandatory during driving in this wonderful forest of Del Norte Coast Redwood State Park. Since this group of forests was just next to the Pacific Coast, there was mist covered the whole forest, I decided to stop and parked my car along the highway and did some hiking in the misty forest, the atmosphere was indescribable, it was like walking in the enchanting forest in fairy tales. The mist covered the whole forest, and I could not see the top of the tree. One thing I noticed that the forest soil was really moist because of the mist, which really contrast to the one I saw at Lady Bird Johnson Grove. I walked around the forest for an hour; happily, saw many mushroom, wildflowers and impressive redwoods. I ended my day at Crescent City, after had one of best clam chowder I’ve ever eaten, I checked in the hotel and discovered that the view from my room was the whole redwoods forest. The next morning, I drove on the famous Howland Hill Road which cut through the redwoods forest of Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. The view along this dirt road was really stunning with hundreds of giant redwoods, much better than the one I saw in other state parks. On the way I stopped at Stout Grove which was very beautiful and very scenic next to the river. The trees here are also bigger than other places. I really enjoyed my time in this grove before I continued my trip to other impressive US national parks, the Crater Lake National Park in Oregon.

Visiting Redwood National and State Parks turned out to be one of my favorite places in California. Before I came here, I was doubt that these were just forests of big trees, and I would satisfy with only one grove; however, after one grove, I wanted to see more and more since the forests are really stunning. I also lucky enough that in only half day I encountered the sea of mist from Pacific Ocean descended into the Redwood twice, and really enhanced my experience and understanding of how unique of these forests. The wildflowers along the coastal beach were also great, something that truly unexpected. After saw many groves of redwood in this World Heritage Site, in my opinion the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park is the best place to enjoy the redwood, especially along the Howland Hill Road and Stout Grove which are really stunning; however my favorite turn out to be Del Norte Coast Redwood State Park for an indescribable experience of hiking in the thick mist under countless of giant trees. Redwood is another great World Natural Heritage Site of USA.