52nd Stop - Avenue of the Giants (CA)

Blog Post #63 - Written April 20, 2026

Stay: September 15-17, 2025

We continued on our Redwoods adventure by driving down to the Humboldt Redwoods.  We loved traveling down the Avenue of the Giants, the long stretch of roads that is entirely encompassed by these incredible giants.  

There was a little town that had some fun roadside attractions.  We found the Eternal Treehouse that was like a mini underground bunker.  There was this incredible tree carving of an Native American as well.  

Across the street, there was this massive hollowed out trunk that we could climb and stand up in.  They also had the Immortal Tree which has been struck by lightning, cut by loggers, flooded, and burned.

The Humboldts had a bunch of small loops to go explore. I think we went down the Founders Grove Loop and the trails around them.  We let the kiddos take their bikes out as we explored.  We found even taller trees with massive gaps in them. It is incredible to think about how much damage the trees can withstand and keep growing. There was evidence of massive burn scars on a few trees.  

This tree had had a colony of some bug that made a beautiful pattern into the bark.

And I don't think we will ever stop being amazed at the magnitude of the root systems of these trees.  It's interesting that as massive as these trees are, they do not have a taproot.  Their root system is incredibly shallow, only about 6-10 feet. Which is why they need such wet placed to survive.

One point of our exploration led us to a tree bridge at Bull Creek.  We scaled across and went to play by the creek.  We started a competition to see if we could throw a rock into the hole in a knot of the tree across the creek.  And, because I am writing this and Gary is not, I get to absolutely brag about how I made a rock in ... twice!  And Gary didn't, muwahaha!  For the first (and probably last) time, I beat him in a feat of dexterity! WAHOO!!! 

Ok. Bragging over.  

Our last stop here was at the Visitor Center.  They had some neat exhibits explaining history behind the logging industry in the area, as well as the intense preservation of the Redwoods.  I think there's only about 5% of old growth Redwoods left in the world.  The Visitor Center also boasted the original RV, which was essentially a decked out wagon bed.  There was also a beautiful otter statue by a local artist who makes mural statues.  She's donated several to the surrounding state parks (including the Jedidiah Smith Redwoods, where we had come from, which is home to a giant moose mural of hers that was unveiled the day we were there).  

I also have to say that even though our campground was more rustic (or in the case of the water, rusty...) than others, the kids had a blast there.  They had a tree stump cabin, which we took a bunch of pictures of because it was so neat.  The kids also found this Four-Toed Salamander.  We also got to meet another full-time RV family, which isn't as common as we thought it was going to be.