Even though our stay was short at Turtle Rock RV, it
was a great park with awesome access to Gold Beach. As we drove by today, there
are people climbing on Turtle Rock! As we drove today, the beach views were
stunning, as there was no fog and the sun was shining! We had only 54 miles to
drive today, so stopping for pictures was easy to do!
Our first stop was at the Meyers Beach North pull out.
Meyers Beach shows just how dramatic the Oregon Coast can be. This beach, set
among the towering dunes of the southern coastline, is about halfway between
the Pistol River and Cape Sebastian State Park. Meyer's Beach makes up the
northern section of the Pistol River State Park. The pistol of Pistol River is thought
to be linked with the Rogue River Indian War. Who would have imagined that
losing one's sidearm would lead to a name for this beautiful beach area. Pistol
River State Scenic Viewpoint, is said to be a photographer's dreamland, its
unmarred beach sands, sea grasses, and driftwood stacks create a multitude of
scenes, textures, grains and colors.
We were following the Samuel H Boardman State Scenic
Corridor. This roadway is a treasure trove full of beautiful little gems just
waiting to be explored. It was named in honor of the first Oregon Parks
superintendent, the landscape protected here is stunning. With secluded
beaches, beautiful vistas, ancient trees, and many miles of the Oregon Coast
Trails to wander, there are plenty of reasons to stop.
If you stop in Brookings Oregon visit Harris Beach
State Park to see off shore sea stacks. These sea stacks are home to a variety
of nesting birds, including the tufted puffin. Brookings is also home to the
Chetco River, a fairly short coastal river, from the Siskiyou National Forest.
The river divides Brookings from Harbor. The North Bank Road goes up the Chetco
River to Azalea Park, a great place to see lush floral gardens. Just after the
Chetco River is the Port of Brookings-Harbor, its two basins accommodate commercial
and recreational vessels.
We came to the Oregon California border. I wanted to
grab a picture of the Oregon Marijuana Shop, just at the border, that was
packed with cars … but did not want to miss my California sign!
It’s likely you’ve never heard of Smith River,
California, but odds are that’s where your Easter Lily was grown. This fertile
land is home to less than 900 residents, but produces about 90% of the world’s
Easter lily bulbs, making it the “Easter Lily Capital of the World.” This
gorgeous river valley is considered the most ideal spot on Earth for growing
Easter lily bulbs due to its nearly perfect growing climate and soil condition.
In fact, only five Easter lily bulb farms produce up to 14 million bulbs each
year. So how did this small strip of coastal land become such a dominant force
in the production of Easter Lilies? It all began in 1919 when a man named Louis
Houghton introduced some hybrid lily bulbs to the south coast of Oregon. Prior
to 1941, nearly all of the Easter lilies plants were imported from Japan, but
WWII changed that. By 1945, Houghton’s crop had taken off and there were around
1,200 growers producing bulbs all along the Pacific Coast. That number would
steadily drop as growers found the bulbs difficult to grow commercially. Unlike
other crops that are planted, left to grow, and harvested later, Easter Lily
bulbs must be planted, harvested and shipped within a span of three months.
That means in order to force the bulbs to bloom in time for Easter, they
require 40 days of a forced artificial winter by refrigeration followed by a
brief growing period in a high-temperature greenhouse. The growing schedule is
crucial since the value of the bulbs drops considerably even one day past
Easter. To complicate matters, Easter doesn’t fall on the same day every year
and can vary by as much as five weeks, so timing is everything.
Smith River is a river flowing from the Klamath
Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. The Smith River flows generally northwest,
entering the Pacific Ocean near the community of Smith River. The river was
named for the explorer Jedediah Smith.
We came into Crescent City and arrived at Sunset
Harbor RV, our home for the night. We will explore Crescent City more later.
We discovered that we could exit our park, go one
block and follow Howland Hill Road into the Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park.
We decided to take an afternoon trip through, before we enjoyed dinner and a
quiet evening. Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park is the last in a long string
of redwood parks that stretch up Northern California's coast. A few miles
inland from the ocean, the park is densely forested with huge ancient trees. In
fact, it contains seven percent of all the old-growth redwoods left in the
world. The park was named for Jedediah Strong Smith, who in the 1820s became
the first white man to explore the interior of northern California. The park
was established in 1929 with a small parcel donated to Save the Redwoods League
by the family of lumberman Frank Stout.
Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park’s 10,000 acres are
managed cooperatively by the National Park Service and California State Parks,
as are Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park,
and Redwood National Park. A World Heritage Site and International Biosphere
Reserve, Redwood National and State Parks protect 45 percent of California’s
remaining old-growth redwoods, an area almost four times the size of Manhattan.
For someone who has never seen one, a Redwood tree
must seem to be something from a tall tale. Averaging eight feet to as much as
twenty feet in diameter, and some as tall as three hundred feet. That is a tree
taller than the Statue of Liberty, from base of the pedestal to the tip of the
torch. A tree larger around and through than a Greyhound bus. Absolutely the
largest living thing on earth.
We stopped at the Visitor’s Center after we drove
through the forest. We learned a great deal about the Redwoods, from the Ranger
and watching a film.
A live redwood that is knocked over will attempt to
continue growing via its limbs. If undisturbed, the limbs pointing up will turn
into trees in their own right, and this is indeed the source of many row groups
of trees.
Cathedral or family groups of trees are simply trees
that have grown up from the living remains of the stump of a fallen redwood,
and since they grew out of the perimeter, they are organized in a circle. If
you looked at the genetic information in a cell of each of these trees, you
would find that they were identical to each other and to the stump they sprang
from. They are clones!
The redwood burls are another survival strategy.
Their growth is held in check by the presence of signals in a living redwood.
If the tree should die, or even be stressed, say by low rainfall or fire, the
signal weakens or vanishes and the burl will burst forth into new life. Burls
kept in a shallow pan of water will grow almost indefinitely. They can also
continue on to become a full grown redwood tree.
Lastly, there is the conventional reproduction
system of seeds. About 20% of today's present trees sprang from seeds. The rest
came from one of the various cloning-based proliferation strategies.
Genetically, it's the same tree after each successive cloning process. 80% of
the trees now growing were produced in one these cloning processes.
If you connect these two facts, you will come to
realize that some of those trees out there could be the last in a 20,000 or
30,000 year (or more) line of the same tree reproducing itself over and over
again! Genetically, they are the same tree that grew from a seed all those
centuries ago!
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