The Best of Prairie Creek 2009

About 8 years ago, I was introduced to the very best campground in Northern California. Nestled among the giant redwoods and where a small herd of Roosevelt Elk call home is my favorite place to camp: Prairie Creek Redwood State Park (or Elk Prairie Campground). Peter has been going there with his family since he was a boy and a few months after we were married, he introduced it to me. Now every year it has become a great tradition, one that I hope our kids will continue with their kids and so on!!

First off, two years ago we discovered a yummy place to eat (thank you Huell Howser!!) in Eureka called Samoa Cookhouse. They serve only three full meals a day; one for breakfast, one for lunch and one for dinner. It is served family style with their famous homemade bread, you can see it in the basket next to Georgia. So we made it in time for lunch and got to chow down on green salad, vegetable beef soup, three-bean salad, baked beans, scalloped potatoes, meat loaf, bread and of course strawberry-chocolate cake.

We like walking through the Historic Logging Museum inside the restaurant. This place has been around since 1890, they served food and provided rooms for the Lumbermen working in the area. Check out those saw blades behind us!!

Our truck was fully loaded!!

Yep, that is me baking cookies in our new camp stove. I also baked brownies, blueberry muffins and a bundt cake.

So we tried to do the Fourth of July on the beach in Crescent City. But it was freakin' cold and windy...even with the fire it was miserable. Even more so for the kids that went into the ocean!!

Georgia put on her suit, but never ventured into the water. There was no way I would let Warren put on his suit...that is him in the blue coat. The beach was littered with people flying kites. The nice people flying this kite let Georgia throw it back into the air each time it fell down to the sand.

Video of Georgia and the kite.


So we gave up on staying at the beach until dark for the firework show and ended up in a parking lot behind Safeway to do our own.

Sparklers...so nostalgic...except I remember them lasting so much longer and being so much more sparkly.


Video of everybody enjoying the sparklers!!

Georgia and Warren sitting on and posing in (see below) a few of the many trees along the hike to the visitor center.

Georgia and cousin Tenney in Fern Canyon. We do this hike every year...it is 5 miles from our campground and drops us off in Fern Canyon, a 1/2 mile hike over streams and with huge ferns growing up the canyon walls.

At the end of Fern Canyon is this path to the ocean.

Seeing Elk on the way to the ocean.

And last but not least, the kids favorite spot to ride their bike. This is Warren's second time down the hill, the first time he made it to the bottom. I am really not a bad mom, but I find this video quite amusing. Georgia is the classic sibling....