Redwoods/Olympic/Lassen Trip Review

[bisous]

Hello! This is a big review so I'm splitting it up for ease of reading!

This post will serve as an overview. We drove over 2500 miles in the past ten days. We left from the greater LA area and toured the Redwoods "complex" of State and National Parks on the Northern California/Oregon border, spent some days up at Olympic National Park and spent a day in Lassen Volcanic National Park.

We spent A LOT of time actually in the car and driving. There is no way around the fact that we had at least 5 days of our total trip that were completely devoted to getting to driving long distances. That said, most of the drive was beautiful and my kids (ages 8, 10, 15, 18) were amazing. I really didn't anticipate that. We also stayed in a variety of questionable towns, lol. I think if we had been able to plan a little more ahead of time (our original plan of vacationing in Yellowstone hit a snag due to the flooding that happened in June this year) maybe we could have gotten slightly better reservations. We had to take what we could get!

Here's the basic breakdown:

Day 1: Drive from home to Salinas.

Day 2: Drive from Salinas to the Eureka, CA.

Day 3: Begin to tour the Redwoods! Hit Sue-Megg park, Elk Prairie, part of the Fern Canyon tour, Howland Road to the Stout Grove. Stayed in Crescent City. (Had some adventures in lodging there!)

Day 4: Drove up the coast of Southern Oregon and then further up the 5 until we went to Aberdeen WA.

Day 5: Visited Lake Quinault, Beach 4, Hoh Rainforest, Rialto Beach, and saw sunset over Lake Crescent. Stayed the night in a great little Air BnB

Day 6: Started the morning seeing tide pools at Tongue Point (I had a slip and ended up spraining my ankle!). I got to sit at the trailheads to Sol Duc Falls and Mary Mere Falls

Day 7: Saw Hurricane Ridge. Drove to Portland. (Got crutches and a boot, lol)

Day 8: Drove to Redding, CA (Saw Mount Shasta--it is impressively tall!)

Day 9: Did a 1 day tour of Lassen Volcanic National Park. Started at the visitor center there (saw the video explaining the park which I think hugely helped the kids understand the rest of our day) and continued with our "road tour" of the area. I was able (on my crutches) to tour the Devastated Area. Sat in the car for the Bumpass Hell (volcanic features like Yellowstone), was able to see a mudpot in an accessible trail for Sulfur Springs, and we finished up in a lovely visitors center again. Stayed the night in Sacramento

Day 10: Drove home!

[bisous]

Just a note about the parks. We loved all of them! I would be happy to provide any additional information if anyone is looking. I'm hoping by listing the parks here future vacation planners can get info about them or reach out to me. My SIL and BIL helped provide us with a detailed organized list of how to do our touring and it made a HUGE difference. They essentially saved this vacation! So if you're curious, ask away!

For stays, we did 9 nights. Of those nine nights, 2 were in a really nice Air BnB that we only got at the very last minute because of a cancellation. 3 of the nights were at Holiday Inn Expresses, lol. All three nights were fantastic for our family. The accommodations were nice in all three locations. Bathrooms were clean, beds were comfy, breakfast was provided. We noticed that there were Holiday Inn Expresses in almost all the areas we stayed though not all had reservations left by the time we were planning. We also stayed at the Hampton Inn in Sacramento and we were comfortable. The other places we stayed were just ok. Many were in dicey areas or they didn't have as many amenities.

[bisous]

For road trip tips, I used a lot of the tips you guys have shared already. We did pack using rubber bands. That was a great hack! We also did laundry at our Air BnB and that was huge. It meant we didn't need to lug around nearly so much stuff. Having wipes, ziplocks and trashbags in the car was essential to feeling comfortable and clean. We did snack runs at night and usually got a breakfast in the morning from our hotel, and fast food dinner and did mostly snacks during the day. I actually wish I had planned a little better. I am just not great at shopping at night after driving all day! I wish the kids were better about sitting in proper restaurants too. We had In n Out a lot!!

The kids were better than I could have anticipated. On designated drive days we did allow them to use games. DH is against games but he's even more against audiobooks (which is my favorite thing to do with a carload of kids) and we just had to compromise. It ended up being sort of important. Normally I'm the driver but i injured myself on Day 6!! after which point he was the only driver. His hated games made it so that when he was driving the kids were pretty much silent. I think it was a decent compromise. They were happy on days that we were touring to put their games away. One of the 9 nights DD wouldn't go to bed and was up tormenting the rest of us (in a 3 queen bed shared room) until 11:00. Thankfully, she got better as the trip progressed!

Thanks for letting me review! The kids loved it. Absolutely a trip to remember forever!

[SnuggleBuggles]

Thanks for the report!
I usually do Hampton Inns as our fall back road trip hotel- I think of them and HIE as interchangeable even down to the same art in both. Fair warning though- read reviews and don’t rely on the brand. We had a horrible- like 1-2 star level- HIE in Ohio once. It was a quick overnight. Soured me on them!

You really covered a lot in a short time!


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[Liziz]

What a great review, thank you for sharing!

[bisous]

Thanks guys! And thanks again for all the help! I'm SO glad we went! It would have been so easy to "cancel" vacation this year with the obstacles we encountered but I know my family will treasure the memories.

[georgiegirl]

Sounds like a great trip! Thanks for sharing. We did Olympic last summer and loved it.

[bisous]

Sounds like a great trip! Thanks for sharing. We did Olympic last summer and loved it.

Olympic was a wonderland. It was surprisingly uncrowded IME though in all fairness I'm used to huge, huge crowds like at Yosemite! Definitely recommend visiting. Next time I want to try to get reservations at the Lake Quinault Lodge.

[AnnieW625]

Glad you had a good trip.

Salinas can be kind of questionable in places. My BFF lives in a neighboring community to Salinas, but overall really likes the area (and her DD1 goes to school in Salinas and it is fine). DH had a bad experience with rowdy neighbors at the HIE there while on a business trip. There are a lot of truck drivers that go up and down that route, and at times and lot of migrant farm workers.

Imho hotels right off the freeway aren’t my favorite but for that drive there isn’t much of an alternative. I definitely do a deep dive on hotel reviews when I am staying in places like that.

I don’t know much about Crescent City although there is a large state prison there that employs a lot of people and I think the vibe is probably different than Eureka (I worked remotely last year for our Eureka office, but never actually had to go there).

Please pm me if you ever need any recs. for the Sacramento valley area. I know the area well. Although the Hampton Inns in the Sacramento area are in pretty decent areas (including the one in my hometown).


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