More trees this morning just up the road from the campground. We visited the Trees of Mystery which is a tourist attraction that has some weird and wonderful redwoods to see. The place was actually really cool and not at all touristy although the whole Paul Bunyan thing was beyond me, who the heck is he and the giant blue ox called Babe?

Mike: Becc, get a book!

Paul Bunyan

Babe

Sitting on Bunyans Boot

Inside the park we saw some amazing trees that had grown in the weirdest formations; some of those are actually featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not. We saw the Family Tree, which is one trunk at the bottom, but there are 12 separate trees growing off it's limbs - really cool but hard to see from the pictures. Then we had the Elephant tree which kind of speaks for itself, and the Upside Down tree which had two separate root systems and trunks, one of which was growing at right angles to the other.
I think the coolest thing was the Cathedral Tree which is a group of nine trees that have grown in a circular pattern to form a small chapel; they have weddings there and Easter services. They also have a baby cathedral tree and they are currently taking reservations for weddings 600 years from now.

The Upside Down Tree

The Lightning Tree

The Cathedral Tree

Mike and the Brotherhood Tree

Within the park there is a gondola ride called the Sky Trail which took us on about a 9 minute ride through the redwood canopy to a observation deck that looked out over the surrounding area; at least I assume it did, it was so wet and foggy up there we couldn't see a bloody thing!

Mike: Becc, you couldn't see because you eyes were closed the whole time we were on the tram!!!

On the Sky Trail

View from the Observation Deck at the top of the Sky Trail

The second part of the walking tour was through a bunch of giant redwood carvings that were all done with a chainsaw, that told the story of the legend of Paul Bunyan. We walked through and listened to the recordings but I'm still not sure I have a clue. The carvings were really cool though.