Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We compare national parks to movies a lot on this podcast,
and that's mostly because these places have a larger than
life vibe and atmosphere that truly looks like something out
of a film, or like something from another planet that
can only be replicated through the magic of Hollywood. But
no park is as much of a cinematic star as
the one we're talking about today, which is Redwood National
Park in California. It's actually officially called Redwood National and
(00:23):
State Parks, and that's unique because this part of coastal
North California is a network of numerous state and national
park sites jointly managed by the National Park Service and
the State of California. Yes, and altogether, these soaring forests
have totally soared to movie stardom over the years, appearing
as the backdrop for some pretty serious blockbusters. And I
(00:44):
mean it makes sense. These trees are truly otherworldly, what
with its skyscraping trees, misty beaches, and fern canyons, So
I get why the Redwood Forests are like cat neet
for movie directors. That's also what made this park such
a fun place to visit and even better to experience
as part of a family vacation. Redwood National and State
(01:04):
Parks may not have dinosaurs and euaks like the movies
would have you believe, but it's still an out of
this world place to visit. Hi, I'm Matt and I'm Brad.
This is park Landia, a production of I Heart Radio.
We sold our loft in Chicago, moved into an RV,
and now we're traveling in the country full time with
our dog Finn, exploring America's national parks. In today's episode
(01:26):
is about Redwood National and State Parks, which is in
northern California. So for some context, we first visited these
parks as part of a late summer family vacation with
my dad, sister, brother, and his then fiance now wife.
(01:46):
And if you remember when we talked about that same
family trip for last and Volcanic National Park in season one,
this Redwood trip was the other part of that trip,
and even better for this part, we're bringing my brother
on as a special guest later in this episode, so
super excited to talk to him. It was a fun
time and it's it's gonna be a fun chat. It
absolutely was. So. Redwood was the first park of that vacation,
(02:08):
which took place in September and started with a day
and night in San Francisco. Then the next morning we
got up early and drove our rental car up the
coast for a few hours to get to this beautiful
national park. It's honestly a pretty easy drive, pretty straightforward,
made all the easier by how ridiculously scenic it is.
At the time, this was pre r V for us,
(02:29):
and we were used to road trips to the Midwest
in the Chicago area, which is mostly pretty boring and
flat and monotonous, so I was not prepared for how
delightfully entered, hinting just the drive would be. Honestly, yeah.
We even got off the highway and stopped for lunch
at some cute diner in Sonoma, which was beautiful. Yeah.
It was this quaint, gorgeous little town called Healsburg, which
(02:51):
incidentally I had been there for a work trip literally
like two months before. We stopped here for breakfast. The
hotel I was staying out was like two blocks away
or something from this very diner, and I remember being
like totally blown away by this coincidence, and everyone else
in the car was like okay, and then had no
reaction and I was like, Okay, that's fine. I mean,
no one else was on that trip with you, so
(03:12):
it's hard to relate. Yeah, I mean I get it.
The silent reaction was deafening. But the food was really good,
just like homing American food, with bottomless mugs of coffee
and those really dense ceramic mugs that you really only
find at roadside diners nowadays, my favorite kind of place. Yeah,
we were just like having this dinner conversation the other day,
actually were, Yeah, because we have very different diner preferences.
(03:34):
I think we like different styles of diners. I'm more
of like the modern, kind of sleek, contemporary approach in
terms of both design and like food. I like inventive
stuff like locks, bagels and things like that, things that
are like kind of gussied up versions of like Americana Fair.
I guess yeah, mine's like two eggs, poached bacon, sausage,
(03:59):
rye toast, butter, and hash browns at home fries. Don't
get it mixed up. Don't don't get me straight. Yeah,
I know you get, but I'm just so I'm so easy.
I'm just so simple when it comes to I want
an old school diner, like the fun like just what
it is? Face you shoot, throw some catch up on
my hash Browns. It's fine, I don't care. I'm not
(04:21):
going to do that because I don't really do that anymore.
But I used to do that. I've never done that,
but yeah, I hear you. So from there from this dinner,
it's another like four and a half hours north to
the National State Parks and that's a bit of a drive,
but like we said, it's super scenic and very very pretty.
So as long as you get an early start from
especially we're leaving from the San Francisco area like we did,
(04:42):
you'll make good time. Oh yeah, it's really not that
far from the Oregon Boarder either. It's way up there.
But the further north you drive, the greener everything gets, yeah,
and the mist year things get too. It's all very
cinematic and immersive, and it really does feel like you're
gradually disappearing into like a differ universe, like a universe
envisioned by Steven Pielberg or something. It's like you're going
(05:04):
to a movie and I have expected to kind of
gradually transform into a c G I character myself, or
to see a dinosaur leap out from the forest and
start chasing us down the run. Yeah, and then it
would like bite off the side mirror of the car
while we all screamed in terror. Exactly. And eventually, though
we didn't see any dinosaurs, Um, we saw a lot
of bigfoot signs all over the place. Yeah, lots of those.
(05:25):
This must be like prime Bigfoot territory because we saw
tons of bigfoot like bigfoot crossing, science, Bigfoot warnings, even
like bigfoot themed businesses and cafes and things like that.
They're really like capitalizing on the fictional like bigfoot stuff.
And I can totally see it too. This seems like
I would have a setting for a giant, mysterious neanderthal.
(05:46):
Anytime I think of Bigfoot, I think of Bigfoot from
a Goofy movie. Remember that scene. I'm almost offended that
you even felt the need to ask me that if
I remember. Of course, I have that movie like memorize
scene for scene basically, and it was very formative for
me in my early years, and if I'm being honest,
it's still formative for me now, Like I'm I continue
(06:07):
to learn from that movie and and grow with it.
And that Goofy movie Bigfoot is like my go to
Oh yeah, absolutely, well, of course, I mean, it doesn't
get much better than Bigfoot. He was a gentle giant. Really, um,
he just wanted to listen to headphones and dance. Yeah,
and maybe like mame goofy and Max, had he gotten
into the car. The movie never really explained like what
(06:30):
the intent was or what the real threat of Bigfoot was,
because he was trying to break into the car, right,
that's the whole gist. And then Max or like flings
the headphones out of the car and they lay it
on Bigfoot's head, and then he just starts to dance
and lose himself to song. And that's when they are,
you know, able to like eat spaghetti or whatever. I
(06:52):
don't know whatever it is. I don't know what happened.
I guess I don't remember scene for scene because I'm
like really spiraling here. But I think it's just your
nervous um. But but again, this is it really shows
how cinematic this part of California's Everything either looks like
a movie or reminds you of a movie, or it
is a movie, yes, which is another reason why I'm
so excited to have my brother on later for this episode.
(07:13):
He's the biggest movie connoist where I know, like by far,
so I think it'll be interesting to get his insight
on on this park trees. So contrary to what we
might be leading you to believe, this place was not
drawn into existence by Disney animators. So the parks that
comprise the system include the actual National Park portion which
(07:35):
was designated in along with Del Norte Coast, Prairie Creek,
and Jedediah Smith, all three of which are state parks,
and when they're all combined, they contain about a hundred
and forty tho acres of America's most iconic trees and forests.
Most iconic there, I said it. Yeah, that's a big statement,
but it really fits. America has a lot of iconic trees,
(07:56):
but these ones definitely stand out. Yeah, literally, they they
stand way out. They're enormous. I think their closest like
size wise trees are sequoias, which are also huge. They're
wider and they have more volume, but they're not as
tall as redwoods. Redwoods definitely grow taller. They're the all
natural skyscrapers. And I would say I would go out
(08:19):
and say that Redwoods are the Sears Tower of trees.
And I know that I know that you and I
are biased because we're from Chicago, but I still firmly
believe that the Sears Tower is still the most iconic
skyscraper in the nation. And I refused to not call
it Sears Tower. I know it's technically Wells Tower, but
it will always be Serious Tower in my heart. You're
one of those I love it. Yeah, I mean teams
(08:41):
Hears all the way. Um. And not only are they
the tallest trees on earth, but they are also some
of the oldest Summer's oldest two thousand years old. So
even though they're not actually the largest trees by volume
or the oldest, they're distinctly special and obviously iconic, especially
since they grow to be almost four tall. The Park
Service doesn't point out which tree is actually the tallest
(09:03):
in order to protect it from visitation crowds, but the
tallest tree is I believe around three and seventy nine
tall in the Redwood Creek watershed. It's called Hyperion. I
love the name. It sounds like a superhero. And they
grow this big because of all the constant moisture and
precipitation including rain and fog, coupled with the region's temperate
(09:26):
climate and average tempts that range between forty five and
six degrees year round, So it's just the most ideal
environment for trees of this size. Plus their bark is
so thick, like up to a foot thick, that it's
a great natural defense against forest fires and disease. But
you're saying twelve in thick, Yeah, twelve, and that's crazy
(09:47):
that it's crager than my foot. Yes. And in case
you're wondering how these enormous vehemiths aren't constantly toppling over
under their own sheer size, that's because their roots each
up to thirteen ft deep and eighty ft long, and
they really they need to be this big in order
to protect against weather and wind and such, and just
their own like mammoth size. So thirteen feet deep, that's
(10:12):
more than twice the size of me um or you
that's you and I put together, plus an extra foot
or two. Um. That's just absolutely insane how big are
But unfortunately most of these trees have been logged over
the years. Um Today the national and state parks protect
about of all remaining coastal redwood trees, which is definitely alarming. Yes, yes,
(10:36):
it is history in the mid eight hundreds, but it's
not even that long ago. In the grand scheme of things,
old growth redwood forest covered more than two million acres
along the northern California coast. Obviously, that number has dwindled
drastically thanks to laggers, to the point where a hundred
forty acres is nearly half of all that remains, which
(10:56):
is terrible. Yikes. In the early eight hundreds, this part
of California was home to Native Americans with tribes like
the Iroq and the Wyote people's who respected the forest
and used it in sustainable ways. Um, they've been doing
it for as long as three thousand years. Absolutely, even
(11:17):
though they did cut redwoods to make boats and housing,
they weren't going nuts by desecrating entire forests. Like one
tree would make it for sure, that goes a long way,
and you're using it for necessity like what what you
need and nothing more. But they also had serious respect
for these trees all the while. Like a tribal elder
from the local Chailula tribe many reeves. She was quoted
(11:39):
in nineteen seventy six as saying her people are people
from within the redwood tree, so there's clearly a deep
spirit trial connection there. And she went on to add
a pretty blunt morning saying, destroy these trees and you
destroy the Creator's love. And if you destroy that which
the Creator loves so much, you will eventually destroy mankind. Which,
let's heavy. Yeah, that definitely needs to be said. Yeah,
(12:03):
because according to this statement, mankind was really just a
couple hundred thousand acres away from being destroyed by the
Creator really pushed it to the brink. And that's because
massive trees like these eventually caught the attention of lumberman
who basically started using these vast forest as their giant
et m so greedy it was a salvation effort after
gold miners initially flocked to the area but failed to
strike it rich that way, so they figured they would
(12:25):
turn to what they saw as the next best thing,
which was logging the abundant redwoods, and considering there were
major metropolitan areas developing nearby, like San Francisco, there was
huge demand for large supplies of wood like this. Logging
continued for several decades until the nineteen twenties, and that's
when conservations started to step in. This is when the
(12:45):
Save the Redwoods League created this batch of three state
parks which was able to stop the rampant logging. What
a great name to Save the Redwoods League. They sound
like avengers or something like tree hiking avengers, and yeah,
I get it. And since the national park destination requires
so much more red tape in federal finagling, not to
mention that World War Two was keeping the government pretty busy.
(13:07):
Redwood National Park didn't formally become a thing until nineteen
and then together this quartet of jointly administered parks, which
I'm going to go ahead and call the Fantastic Four
of Parks because I think that fits. They protect what's
left of the coastal Redwoods, although terrifyingly, by this point
almost of these trees had been logged. Yeah, it's shameful
(13:28):
and sad to see so many people didn't see the
beauty and the ports of these forests. They only sell
dollar signs, and it's not even just the trees themselves.
The forests they comprise are hugely important and protect threatened
wildlife like stellar sea lions, chinook salmon, and northern spotted owls.
All together. These ecosystems are so unique and geologically important
that this part of California was classified as a World
(13:50):
Heritage Site in eighteen eighty and an International Biosphere Reserve
in nine three. It's always nice to see a happy ending.
And when we come back, we're going to talk about
road trip to Redwood National and State Parks. Hi. I'm
(14:15):
Matt and I'm Brad. This is park Landia, and today
we're talking about Redwood National and State Parks in California.
For our experience at Redwood, everything was perfect. I don't
want to sound all happy, go lucky and twee, but
that's exactly what it was. The weather at the time
of year, the minimal crowds, the scenery, everything just worked
and it was all perfect. It was gorgeous. It was
(14:36):
late September and the summer rush was pretty much over.
The parks get about a half a million annual visitors,
many of whom just visit through June and August, right
But once kids are back at school and vacation is over,
that's when we opted to go, and it really worked
in our favor. We started with the Coucil Visitor Center,
which is the southernmost visitor center along the coast, just
(14:56):
off US one oh one. It's easy to get to
and an absolutely beautiful environment too, with the misty ocean
right there aligned with rocky shore and small islands scattered
off the coast, and it's speckled with sea logs here
and there too. It's it's just a beautiful place to
start your trip at Redwoods. Yeah, this is definitely not
the type of beach for swimming. It's a total opposite
from the beaches of Southern California, that's for sure, right,
(15:18):
But say, we're beautiful to straw along and gawk at
and take photos. I actually much prefer these beaches to
Southern California. I would say I'm team NorCal when it
comes to like the beaches and coastline. So we picked
up our visitor guides here and bought some souvenirs, and
you and your brother got your passport stamped. Oh yeah,
we sure did, and Whitney did to our our sister
in law. Now I love saying that she was on
(15:40):
this trip. She was just she was my brother's fiance.
Now they're married, so now I can reminisce fondly. Absolutely,
and her and my brother were recently engaged on this trip,
but as of this recording they're recently married. So it's
still a delightful novelty to call her Whitney Carouac. Still
pure delight happen. And I'm also really glad that we
(16:02):
were able to persuade her to join in on our
National Park passport obsession, so which I have not I'm
having vicariously through all of you because I just can't.
I can't. Well, you'd be too far behind at this
point too, That's rude. I'm kidding. No, I would be
because I just don't have all the stamps and stickers,
and so I would be like a big investment. Um.
(16:23):
But there's also a film about the park, um, some
museum exhibits, and a picnic area here too. And then
from here we went on and get settled from our
rental home for the next few days. Your dad had
set up this house rental on Airbnb or vr b oh.
Sometimes I thought, yeah, yeah, not far from the visitor
center area which is in this town called or Yeah,
(16:44):
our house was more inland from this this part, we're
pretty much in the thick of like the cultural Redwood Forest,
which was so great great, like an awesome place to
hold up for a few days, a real show stopping vibe,
and the house was amazing. Do you remember the house
like yes, so like paradise and just like soa bucolic
and really it was constantly surrounded by massive elk too.
(17:05):
It's like something out of a woodland fairy tale. And
again with like the movie pipes just perfect. Well, it
wasn't constantly surrounded by elkum that would actually be terrifying,
dangerous sense Roosevet elk congruped about twelve hundred pounds. But
we did have a few elk sightings in the backyard
and from a safe distance. Yeah, my dad actually got
a few great elk photos. He didn't Yeah, I think
(17:27):
one of them is still the background image on his phone.
But like one of the ALKI said, this kind of
ominous looking elk like in the in the misty morning fog.
It was. It's great. Animals were a big and elk
are a big deal of redwood too. They're easily the
most iconic of all the wildlife species that live here.
But definitely do be careful and keep a safe distance,
(17:48):
of course, because unlike woodland fairy tales, these animals will
not sing and dance with you and we view dresses
or whatever. They'll trample you if they feel threatened. Yeah,
that's good to prepare our listeners, but we shouldn't scare
them either. I mean, it's it's a fine line and
I'm here to blur it. But yeah, the house was
absolutely bucolic and perfect. Like I said, trails, we basically
(18:09):
just dropped her stuff, got changed, relaxed a little, and
then we drove down the road to do a little
hike and we did a portion of the Redwood Creek Chail,
which was completely breathtaking. It really was. We didn't do
the entire trail, this was about fifteen miles round tripping back,
but we did hike along the creek for a few
miles and just bast in the glory of these used trees.
It's such a peaceful setting, especially when it was as
(18:32):
sunny and miles as it was when we were there,
And I loved every bit of it, especially when we're
all kind of spread out and dispersed along the creek.
At one point we started skipping stones. It was like
it's just like something out of you know, a dream,
with this perfect like babbling a little brook and we
all without we didn't even talk about it. We weren't like,
let's start skipping sounds. We all just kind of branched
(18:53):
out and started doing it. And I haven't skipped a
stone and I don't know how long. So this was
This was fun and also a nice reminder that I'm
I'm still not good at it. I don't know how
to do it. Um. And then we scrambled up this
huge fallen log and took some great group photos together.
I remember having to like jump up there in the
run and like, I mean, it wasn't it wasn't the
easy look, but it was a good one. Yeah, the
(19:14):
tree was so huge that we really had to like
leap and then drag ourselves up on it, but totally
worth the effort to Ye, it was perfect. And you
know what was even more perfect our kayaking trip on
the Smith River the next morning. Oh my god, yes river.
I'm gonna go out in a limb here, like a
huge redwood limb and say that this was the most
fun I think we've ever had kayaking in any National
(19:36):
park or any setting in general. I think that's accurate.
It was definitely one of the most dynamic and most
action packed from some of the rapids, the hiking excursions
on the riverside we did a lot. And I remember
on the way too, as we're being driven to like
the load endpoint by our kayak guide who was saying
that that Netflix movie bird Box was filmed along the
river here, and I never saw that movie, but I
(19:57):
love imagining like a blindfolded Sandra Bula kayak down the
river with us, another great example of how cinematic displaces.
We're just constantly surrounded by it, even when we're not
totally sure what it's about. Yeah. Right, So this kayak
trip was pretty much everything. All of us loaded into
our individual kayaks and we sat off for a few
miles down this crystal clear, perfectly blue river, like the
(20:19):
cleanest and prettiest river I think I've ever seen. Seriously,
it was gorgeous. You and your sister almost capsized during
You hit these like rocky rapids at first, and then
I crashed my kayak into yours. Yeah, it was a
little bit of a pile up, thanks, And things got
even wetter when Whitney fell off her boat when we
were all stopped at a big rock in the middle
of the river. Yeah, I remember hearing just the splash
(20:40):
behind me, and then I turned around and saw Whitney
standing up out of the water, and I knew how
cold it was, so I really felt for her, even
though she was really chill about it. Yeah, and from
up on this huge rock, our guy told us that
we could just jump off it into the river. So
each one of us did that one at a time.
It was a pretty big leap to uh. Probably that was.
It was high up there, intimidating and very nerve racking,
(21:02):
but like, the river is so pristine that it's the
type of water you definitely want to jump into. And
I was scared at first, but I I had to
do it obviously, even though once I did finally do it,
as soon as I hit the water, I was filled
with freezing regret and I like swam as fast I
had to get out of the water. It was so cold.
He did not probably warn us about how cold it
(21:22):
would be to jump into. No, no, he did not.
I remember when I like did this front flip and
everyone was like, oh, wow, that's amazing, and then I
saw the replay, I'm like, I definitely looked cuter doing that.
In my mind, Well, I thought you perfectly cute in
real life doing that. Oh good, Well, then that's why
we don't record that. You just look it from memories
(21:44):
forget like I have that you don't. I don't know
what you're talking about. Yeah, I did, I didn't you do? Um?
And you were brave because you were the first one
to go, you know. I guess we'll have to put
that on our Instagram page. Oh yeah, right, that's going
out there. Yeah. So yeah, that was That was an
intense experience for sure. And then from this portion from
(22:05):
this Giant Boulder swimming excursion, we paddled pretty much to
the other side of the river and then all kind
of parked it on the shore and then our guide
took us into the woods for like a little side hike.
Is that when we heard about hikers lemonade? So our
guy told us about this or that grows in abundance
(22:26):
in these types of forests, and it gets a nickname
Hiker's lemonade because it's edible and refreshing, and I think
it tastes like lemonade or something taste lemonade. It did, yeah, absolutely,
and it was weird, oh gosh, because it it tastes
just like edible lemonade. It was a revelation. He had
us all try it, and I remember, like my eyes
(22:47):
like did one of those cartoon things where they bolted
out of their head, out of my head because I
tried it, I'm like, this is amazing. So it really was,
like I have a video of you behind me, like
picking up the hikers lemonade off and continually eating along
the whole entire trail. I was grazing like an olk,
just like walking through the forest, grabbing hiper's luminated by
the fist fall, shoving in my mouth. It was so good,
(23:09):
it really was. I mean it wasn't a long trail either,
but it was a beautiful one because you know, that's
one that people just don't go on unless they're kayaking
and know about um. But when we got to the end,
it was really cool because I remember he goes, oh, yeah,
circle round, I want to get your picture, and then
he turned it to pano mode and went up the
tree line and did a panel picture. I'm like, your genius,
(23:31):
you're working for your tips hunting. And we didn't even
tell him to do that, did we. We didn't ask
for a panoramic shock, but he just he just knew
that was not his first rodeo, and yeah, he clear.
Because the red Woods canna be hard to photograph because
they're so tall and it's almost impossible to get them
all in one photo. To be very far away, you do,
and you gotta panorama helps. So that was great. When
(23:55):
we come back after the short break, we're gonna bring
on our guests, Brian Caro, wac Hi, I'm Matt, and
(24:23):
I'm Brad. This is park Landia in today's episode is
about Redwood National and State Parks in California. Alright, So
we've definitely talked a lot about movies so far this episode.
And that's not just because this place reminds us of
a goofy movie or because our kayak guide was talking
about bird Box. Lots of big movies are actually filmed
here in the various Redwood State Parks, as well as
(24:43):
nearby sites like mere Woods National Monument. Yeah, the setting
is pretty iconic, so it's perfect for movies like The
Lost World, Rise with the Planet, Apes, Star Wars Episode six,
Return of the Jedi, all of which filmed here. I
think the most popular of all these is the Beater
chase scene from Star Wars definitely popular, and how can
(25:04):
you not love the walks. They're less intimidating the most
about alk, that's for sure. I think my favorite, though,
is probably The Lost World, and not only because that
franchise is one of my favorite movie series ever, but
because all the forest scenes are filmed here, plus that
terrifying sequence where the t Rex pushes the motor home
over the cliff. I'm just glad Roosevelt alc. Didn't push
(25:25):
our v over cliff here. Yeah. Really, Okay, First of all,
that movie scene is insane, though, Can we just talk
about that because I remember seeing it for the first
time in theaters and how vividly it's stuck with me
like watching it, and then also like when I was
on video or whatever years later, I watched it at
Meinanna's house too with her and she's such like so
sweet and meek, and seeing her reaction to this like
(25:48):
really graphic scene where the t Rex like shoves the
motor home off a cliff, She's like, oh my, and
I'm like, I know, it's it's like really shocking intense,
and it's always been I think one of my favorite
most memorable scenes from movie probably ever, still like that
movie came out in and here I am twenty plus
years later, still memorying it and loving it, and after
(26:12):
our time here at Redwood, I think even more so
because we were you know, it was filmed, this is
where that scene was filmed, and doubly so because we're
now living in an RV in a motor home. So
except ours isn't as nearly larger fancy as the one
in the movie. No, but there's was brutally destroyed and
Julian Moore almost died when she crashed into the glass.
(26:32):
So I think we're fine. And I also think this
is a great moment to bring on our guest for
this episode, my brother Brian. So, Brian, how are you
doing tonight? Um? Great, thank you for having me on
your podcast. Absolutely, it was such a fantastic trip to
the Redwoods, and there was so much, there's so much
to enjoy to commemorate, and it's such a beautiful, historic
(26:56):
and cinematic national park. Yeah, and I feel like, honestly,
we've talked and mentioned Brian on this podcast enough that
I feel like he's the third host in a way,
like already we just mentioned him enough. Well, Finns the
third host. Brian, I guess would be the fourth host.
That's very nice of you to say. I mean, it's
(27:19):
it's true because aside from after Brad, you're the person
who have visited more National parks with than anyone but
probably by far, like from childhood up until today. So
and you're the person who got me obsessed with the
National Parks passport, which then you know I tend to
be a very obsessive person. So I spirled rapidly out
(27:41):
of control and that ultimately kind of led to this.
So I guess thank you because none of this probably
I had, I mean I had no idea what introducing
like introducing you to that passport book would ye or
my wildest dreams today envisioned it would spiral into this
(28:03):
or just like this is an interesting thing that he
would probably like. And that was right. Just yeah, I
had no idea. Yeah that was right. And now yeah
I really took that and ran with it. And that
was um our first like family national park themed vacation
that we started doing. That was like a few years ago,
(28:25):
that was in twenties sixteen, and Dad suggested doing like
this outdoorsy kind of trip with um Our sister Emily
and me and you and him, and that was the
It was the four of us in that first year
where we went to Yellowstone and Grand Teuton. A beautiful
trip it was. It was yeah, and very formative. And
that was where both you and I got the National
(28:46):
Parks passport in Grand Teton and yeah, so I went
crazy with it and here we are. Was it next year?
Was was this trip? The next year? Redwood and Blast
and Volcanic? I think it was okay. So the cool
thing about that was you and I were both kind
(29:07):
of deep into our National Parks fascination. At this point,
we had been stamping like crazy. And the thing I
loved most about the Redwood trip in Lawson was that
this time, um, we were able to bring Brad and
Whitney along with us. So our little our group and
our family is expanding. It was beautiful. Yeah, I love that.
(29:28):
I love it too. Earlier in this episode, we talked
about how you two were newly engaged. Yeah, and now
you were married, you nearly married. Yeah, married, and so
Whitney caro, whag. It's just weird. It's different. I feel
like I've had a lot of We've had a lot
of different important steps in our relationship, followed almost immediately
by trips to national parks, which has been nice. Yeah
(29:51):
that's a nice thing. I like that. So yeah, so
this was great and actually sorry to cut you off,
but what what a national parks? Were they mean? Do you, Brian? Like,
what does that bring to your life? Yeah, let's get
right to it. Oh wow, what do they mean to me?
I mean aside from just being um like beautiful nature
(30:12):
preserves that are just I don't know, rare to see anywhere. Um,
I've always looked at them, to put it in like
the stupidest way possible. I I'm big into video games, right, So,
like video games have like certain um levels, are certain
like areas of the world that are like vastly different
from the other, and it's like always a lot of
(30:33):
care goes into creating them from the game developers. But
like national parks, I go to them like this is
like a world in a in a game, which I
don't know. Maybe that's something about me that I have
to like compare like actual nature to fantasy video game stuff.
But um, it's really just like it's incredible that like
(30:56):
something like Big Bend National Park. It's like I can't
believe this desert world is part of the same country
or map that like Redwood National Park is these like
giant trees like you go and it's like, I can't
believe this is the same the same world that these
two things are at. And I don't know. I just
I love experiencing. I love experiencing. That's true. I mean
(31:20):
it's literally like Matt will go and say it's like
this Disney ride or yeah, I mean I do, and
you know by you referencing to games like, it's absolutely true.
We all have our different ways of like referencing national parks,
and that's really the beauty of them, and we do
it with We compared it to Disney a lot. We
also compare it to movies a lot, which really fits
with Bread one. But also, like I've been comparing lately
(31:42):
in the video game thing like certain roads in parks especially,
I think I'm like, oh, this should be a level
in Mario Park. Well, I love well and in this
adventure bring it back to the earthly realm of where
we actually live. And we started this all off in Chicago.
Well for us, it started in Chicago, But where did
(32:02):
you start this trip from? So we started from Boston. Um,
Dad and Emily met us at Logan Airport in Boston,
and uh, Dad, Emily, Whitney, and me flew from Boston
to Chicago, where we met you guys at the hotel
connected to the Chicago airport and we spent the night there,
I mean, and then we all flew to San Francisco,
(32:23):
UM where we would start bar hopping because obviously we
love to indulge in drinks. So yeah, first things first,
we dropped basically just drop our luggage off, and then
we're like, okay, which bar first, sprint to the nearest,
sprint to the nearest bar, and we went to Trick Dog,
which is an amazing cocktail bars. Yeah it was. Then
(32:43):
didn't we walk from the It felt like we had
hours we walked from there to get to the next place.
But a tiq bar, right, didn't we walk from there?
Another stable in cocktail world, Smugglers Cove. Yeah, that's like
one of the pinnacles of tiki bars, I think in
the entire country. Really. Yeah, so we're obsasotika bars and
we're like, well, we got to go there and be
(33:06):
I don't think it was close at all, but we
thought and then it wasn't Oh my god, this is
a horrific time when somehow I was a person taking
us and then I got us lost, and then my
phone died, and I remember being lambasted by somebody in
the group, like like mad at me because I got
us lost. But we did walking like fifteen minutes out
(33:27):
of the way. It was that was really on all
of us because you showed us the map you were following,
and like we all looked at it. We're like yep,
We're like that checks out. Yeah, none of us wanted
to take responsibility for the map. So I can navigate
national parks, but somehow I can't navigate cities. Well. Also,
San Francisco is a very confusing city. It's not laid
out in like the same way like we're used to
(33:48):
with Chicago, where it's a very straightforward grid or Sarrancisca
was like zig zaggy streets and like hills and a
lot of craziness. So we had to process that, but
we didn't. We made it there. We made it. The
smugglers kind of found a cozy corner and blood basement there. Yeah,
that place was like a Disney right, It was like
(34:08):
the lions for Pirates of the Caribbean or something. Yes,
it really was like this dark, very alluring place, like
it feels like you're in this cave at the sea,
and also like there's an upstairs and downstairs and you
go inside. It's really it's jarringly dark. Your eyes need
to adjust and then try. You also need to be
careful to fall on the stairs because they're right right there.
(34:32):
That's a liability. But we made it down and how
to blast It was so fun. There's like a little
waterfall there and it feel like pirates could just walk
in at any moment and I would have been unphased. Yeah,
like find like not angry ones, but yeah like ones. Yeah,
like what's John's character Captain Jack Jack? Yeah, I would
(34:53):
have been like, you asked that question but you knew it. Well,
you're just trying to getting some answers here. I see
what you do, half Christian. It's a good interview tactic.
Yeah right, um. Now after after San Francisco, it was
a beautiful drive too, was actually stunning. But before we
of course had to stop by wet Bridge Golden Gate
Bridge there for some reason, he used his own tricks
(35:18):
on him. I didn't. He was so excited sto. Which
I don't know if you bost know this, but Golden
Gate Bridge is its own National Park site. I did
not know that. Thank Yeah, so it's like now Golden
Gate National Heritage something something like that. And you can
see Alcatraz from right there. Yeah, literally, we gotta go
(35:39):
to al we do h. I was thinking of Prisoner
of Azkaban. That was clearly I think of Askaban too,
but I feel like Askaman is clearly modeled after Alcatraz.
How is it not? Like the name sounds the same,
it's the same format like this President in the middle
of an angry bay. The references and I'm here keep
(36:03):
comparing real life things to fantasy things of this episode. Yeah.
So yeah, we saw like sunrise at Golden Gate Bridge
and was planned. That was planned and then yeah, so
we got some photos there and then drove the rest
(36:24):
of the way, which was a sizeable drive I think
from San Francisco up to Redwood. It was like five
hours or something, and but like we woke up super early,
so it wasn't that bad and the like we said,
like the drive is really scenic and pretty, so you
don't really mind it as much. You're driving through really
like scenic terrain, and the trees get greener and greener
(36:46):
and taller and taller, and then all of a sudden
you're like in the Redwoods and it's gorgeous. Grandpa. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I don't remember the drive being bad. I'm trying to remember.
I really don't remember the drive. It was a delight
the whole way. Yeah, it really was, it really was.
I want to fast forward here just a little bit
and really just dive into Redwood because there's so many
(37:08):
ways that you can discover your parks. Travel to your parks,
find your parks, and so Redwood. We get there, and
what do we do. Well, the first thing we do
is to go to the visitor center, one of the
visitor centers. We go to Couchel Visitor Center, which is
right along the coast. And it was very beautiful day
and I feel like it was like such a quintisential
(37:29):
day in the Redwoods. Like the fog, which is probably
there all the time, but it was like sunny and
foggy and nice and crisp. It was probably like I
don't know, six year degrees or something really comfortable. And
we get our passport books stamped. Obviously big priority. First
things first check yeah, and then we do that. We
go to the house. Oh that stunning at the dream House.
(37:54):
The name of that area was that like Elk Meadow
lodges Um. I wouldn't surprise because it was surrounded by
elk like I was. I was trying to remember it
today and I like even I went on to Google
the National Park and I saw that posted and I
clicked on it looked like where we stayed. Sense given
what we saw, it wasn't anything big, but it was
(38:15):
just no, oh gosh, it was so good, like living room,
a spacious kitchen and like dining area that was kind
of split into the living room. Nice little back porch.
I think there was a grill, but I don't know
if we used it. We didn't use it. And then
but there's a few better, perfect place to be play
our favorite board game. Yeah, so this track quiz, Brian,
what is that Trekking across I'm going to get it wrong.
(38:40):
Trekking across the US, Trekking the National Parks. But at
least that's really I knew that trekking was involved. Trecking
was involved. Such a fun game that's the best. And
also it's just obviously perfect to play that game when
we're literally staying in a National park. So we just
(39:00):
remember playing that. At least one night, we all gathered
around the table, played truck in the National Parks, probably
had a bunch of beers, California beers, and then we
mostly just like cooked. We used the house because the
kitchen was like fully stocked and like everything, and it
was great. I loved it there so much. It was
really comfortable, great location was close to a lot, and
(39:24):
it was like a little community, a bunch of little
houses in there. Felt like I don't great, Yeah, I know.
So we were there for at least a few nights.
I think it was a good anchor place to be
for our time in Redwood, which started with we did
this trail. We did the Prairie Creek Trailer part of
(39:45):
the Redwood Creek Trail, like right away we dropped our
stuff off and then hikes for a few miles. And
that was the one that was just like a flat
trail like on a road. That yeah, that was pretty
easy and straightforward. And that's the one where at least
like the point where we turned around was at one
of the kind of creek crossings. There was a bridge
(40:06):
and we all like gathered for a group photo on
top of this giant falling redwood log. Oh yeah, rocks,
a lot of rocks. If we were talking about that
earlier in the episode, and it's just such a beautiful memory. Yeah,
such a great yeah. And I also liked how we
all just quietly No one talked about rock skipping, but
we just kind of quietly just started doing it. And
(40:30):
I feel like it was an unspoken competition to see
who throw rocks the furthest or skip. I couldn't throw
them at all, Like I didn't skip on. I feel
like Brian would be a little bit competitive here and
be like, I take great pride in my ability to
skip rocks. I mean I'm not I'm not ashamed to
(40:50):
admit that. And I mean, yeah, that that was that
was a lot and clear. I mean, I don't want
to put like, I don't want to put it out
there so people want to compete with me when they
do it, because I wanted to be like kind of
on the down low that I'm okay at it. You
want to you want to surprise people with that. Sorry
spoiler alert, Bryan is really good at skipping rock. Yeah. Right,
(41:18):
And then when we were done with that trail, um
either that day or the next day, that's when we
went on that huge kayaking Oh yeah, that was right.
And early the next morning we all got back into
the rental car and we drove this was like to
the northern part of the park. I remember, it was
like a little bit of a drive in the morning,
but that's where Smith Ripper is and such a pretty river,
(41:41):
so pretty, and we all met up with our kayak
guide who then like had us pile into his big van.
He has, you know, one of those long bands where
you can storage items and have a bunch of people
corraled inside of it, and he drove us to this
drop off point where we all convened and got into
(42:01):
our kayaks and got into the river and it was
such an incredible that that was like the most fun
I've had kayaking probably ever. I think most of my
most of my kayaking anyway, has been on lakes and
stuff like that, so it's fun to do it in
a river where it's like dynamic, constantly changing scenery. And
this waver River was pretty wide. It wasn't like a
(42:22):
small river and I remember it was like that perfect
day where it wasn't too chilly, but like I wore
a jacket because yeah, thats a good idea, and just
over the river and just over your head you just
had a million little like little flies and you know,
you could just see them and they hit you and everything.
(42:43):
But it didn't even matter because it looked like it
was gorgeous. It was stunning. It was like this fog
of flies. And I remember that. I think I remember
it was like this activity. It was like like the
fizzy stuff above a soda. That's what it felt like. Yes,
that's exactly what it felt like, such a carbonation cloud
of eyes. Yeah, and it didn't bother us. You do
(43:03):
emon bother you. I didn't notice, I remember it, yea. Yeah.
So I remember like early on, within the first like
ten minutes of being in the kayaks, there was like
a little bit of a pile up um. We hit
some nut rocks, but like some mild rappids, I guess,
And like Emily was first, our sister Amla's first, and
(43:24):
she kind of like careene to the side and then
I like slammed into her, and then Brad slams into me,
and you also like fell off your cup. You were
not into the water, but you were like kneeling on
her someone. So you like fell face forward onto the
top of your kayak because you hit me. Oh that's right,
because I was on my knees. I was trying something different. Yeah,
(43:45):
I know. I was trying my different like kayaking stances
because it was like an open face kayak. Oh yeah, right,
the one that you could sit on top of or
kneel on top of. And that was fun. Yeah, it's
always great for a good kayak pile up, a little
kayak pile up. Yeah, I remember that and thinking like, well,
that's the closest anyone's going to get to falling in
on this trip. But that would turned out not to
(44:08):
the case. Yeah right, that's I thought that too soon. Yeah,
let's talk about that, because I was talking with Brad
before this about you capsizing, and he didn't remember. I
think he was probably too far back in the group.
But I was right in front of you, and I
remember hearing it and turning around and be like, oh,
you're you're in the water now. I really think that's
(44:30):
when I was posing on a rock, probably, I hope,
so Um, I feel like the situation was pretty chaotic,
like whatever was happening, there must have been some like
light rapids we were in, and I feel like I
didn't Emily like throw an article like or jacket like
up in the air or something. She lost somebody lost
an article of clothing in the water, Yes, she did remember,
(44:55):
and some of the river somebody found it again. Yeah. Yeah,
I forgot about about which was lucky for her. My
my experience during that time, So it was in light rapids.
I don't know, I don't exactly know how it happened.
I just remember at one point, going down this kind
of rapid e part of the river, I just like
(45:17):
something I must have bumped out of my kayak and
I started, like I felt myself slowly like rolling out
of the kayak and falling back into the river. But
it happened. It happened incredibly slowly, like slow enough where
you think you think that any any person doing this
would have plenty of time to correct what was happening.
But I just watched, like my feet on the kayak
(45:40):
and I just watched them go higher up into the
air until I felt backwards and was completely submerged. Um.
And yeah, and it also made me realize that trying
to swim while you're wearing shoes is a strange feeling. Yeah,
like that's what sticks out of mind. Like wow, I
(46:01):
don't know if I've ever done this before, but um, yeah,
it was. It was startling. I've never been tossed. I've
been whitewater rafting. I managed to stay in the kayak
during class four rapids, but not during this a very
turbulin area. If you had to like judge these out
of like one to five, it would probably like a
one point five. There was no reason why I fell
(46:23):
out of it. I don't know how it could happened,
but it did. Yeah. I remember our guide who was
in front obviously, and he like gave us a little
bit of a head suvious, like just casual heads off.
These are some mild rapids. He'll be fine. But and
then I was like behind him, and then like I
hear like a slummash and splash and then next you're
swimming next ding and now you're swimming to shore and yeah,
(46:48):
and I can only imagine too, because I remember how
cold that water was because we had all like immediately
prior to this, been at that big boulder or whatever,
and we're like taking turning to jumping off into the water.
So oh yeah, it was called Yeah, it was like
much colder than I thought it would be. That was
(47:08):
that was that was really fun. But after we spent
a couple of minutes on that rock jumping off of it. Um,
we went over to that trail and that's where we
were introduced to Hikers Lemonade. Like we were talking about
earlier in the episode, what was your favorite part of
that trail? I guess, well, I guess my favorite part
of it was being able to just like pick vegetation
(47:30):
off of the ground and eating it. Um, that's what
I remember the most. Anyway, The Hikers Lemonade looks like
these little like almost like four leaf clovers just growing
on the ground, and we were told that we could
just pick them up and eat them. So we did,
and they taste remarkably like lemonade, which I couldn't get
(47:51):
enough of. I was like stuffing him in my mouth,
I know, Sam, And then twenty four hours later, all
of our miles are broken out with poison ivy rather one. Yeah,
the guy, It's like JK, yeah, I cannot digest this right, right,
I know that was that was so good. I can't
get over that. I remember, like because it's very unnatural,
(48:11):
seemingly as a human being, like to be told while
you're hiking through the middle of the woods to like,
you know, reach down and just eat something growing off
the forest floor. And I'm like, I don't, I don't
do this normally, but is this what foraging? Is this foraging? Yeah?
I love it. I felt like in a woodland animal,
you know, And it was great for I felt like
(48:35):
I could survive out in the woods by myself. Yeah,
I'm like I could live here, I could live off
the Yes, I could eat only this and be fine.
Just hikers almanad. Yeah, I wish I had something to
be honest, like, I wish they sold it in stores. Yeah,
I know, I agree. My favorite So, Brian Um on
(48:58):
a podcast we talked about out our favorite things we
have not told each other. They are surprises and while
this isn't the end of this episode, what we wanted
to do is we want to bring you on to
this tradition of ours to tell us what our favorite
things are and share And I am honored. So, Brian,
(49:18):
what was your favorite part of this trip. Yeah, the
whole thing I'll have read about. Oh geez well, UM,
I mean the kayak trip was a highlight. UM. That
might be my favorite part of the trip. But I'm
going to condense it down even further and say that
the rock that we stopped at and jumped off of
(49:40):
into the water, UM, I have very distinct great memories
of that UM one mainly because Whitney, my now wife, UM,
took an unexpected charge of the freezing cold water. I
didn't get to see it. I just heard her screams same.
I didn't see any other but I heard the splash.
(50:02):
Everyone just like turned around and like wit like, yeah,
yeah she had. She had parked her kayak and was
trying to step up into the rock but lost her
footing and just like jumped back into the water. UM.
Which was great. Yeah, I love seeing it. UM. But
in addition to that, we all jumped in which was fun.
(50:23):
But then Brad surprised everyone with a with a front
flip off of this huge boulder. Yeah. It was kind
of like almost like a front heart wheel flip, kind
of curved. But it was fun because in my mind
I looked great. And this is saying earlier I think
felt like great, I took a video. I looked at
(50:44):
the video and I'm like, and I'm pretty sure didn't
our guide wasn't. He like, wow, can we use that
for our website or something? That's right? He said something
like that, this is how we're going to sell this
kayak trip. You're filip off this rock. Well, I'll have
to forward that video onto Um he's been waiting for
like a year. Yeah. Actually that was a great That
(51:09):
was a great part of that trip. I mean, the
whole kayak thing was really really amazing, but that part
was really fun. I just remember being like so shot,
utterly shocked by how cold the water was. I wasn't
properly warned. Our guy did not. He says like, I'm
sure jump in. He didn't say like, by the way,
it's definitely cold, like you're gonna yeah, And I assume
(51:32):
you got some kind of sick pleasure out of seeing
this experience that, yeah, and see our faces after each
of us jumped in and like definitely panic swam to
the rock. But yeah, that was a lot of fun. Yeah,
it was What was yours my favorite? Um? I think
my favorite was probably after this kayak trip, we did
(51:53):
this longer hike through Redwoods and that was really fun.
I don't know you liked it as much because you
were hiking in like water shoes. Yeah, that was just
a miserable time because I didn't have socks on. I
had wet water shoes. It was really bad. Yeah, not ideal,
but yeah, because it was love That one. That's one
(52:14):
with all the switchbacks. Yeah, that one had more switchbacks
and it was like up and down we went through
and over some creeks. But the trees in there were
just like mind blowing. There was just such a like
condensed variety of them here. There was so much and
it was I think the longest or one of the
longer hikes we did in Redwood too. So it was
nice let's spend some quality time like in the deep
(52:37):
in the woods like this, and especially after the kayak
trip where I'm like, okay, it would be nice to
use our legs again. Yeah. Was that the one the
trail that we walked through like a hollowed out Oh yeah, yeah,
so we crawled through it, didn't we It was like
the tree was wide enough and mostly hollow that like
we're able to crawl throughout the through the entire length
(53:00):
of it pretty much. Yeah, it was like there was
like caves inside of trees, but because there's so like
these trees are just so huge that you don't realize
like you could create a home inside of them, like
at least the size of ov I could live in
there and just eat hyper slamonade and make it my
home perfect. Right, I know where I'm in Disney World attractions,
(53:25):
and you realized about I guess Disney is basing it
off of something. It's a real life here. Yeah, and
that comes clear, that comes through like super clear. Absolutely.
I think my favorite thing would actually be like, honestly,
it wasn't a place. It was just the ability to
do this trip altogether with my family. Like I loved
(53:46):
like spending the time with you guys, um, you know,
with you know, Donald Whitney, Emily, Brian, Matt, myself. It
was just one of those really awesome times where you
get to connect and see each other and just like
go through it um live and cooked together and kayak
and hike. It was all of just about the the
(54:08):
ability to do it as a family. That was really
cool to me. That's very nice. So Brian, ultimately, at
the end of the day, What did you get out
of this trip? Uh, well, I guess a big thing
that I got out of this trip was, um how
I mean surprising this country. I guess this world can
(54:32):
still be. Like you go to a place like Redwood
National Park, which you've heard about and you've seen pictures
of redwoods, but to actually be there and to see
these like massive trees that look like they're from I
don't know, some giants world in one of the rings
or something is it's humbling because you're just this miniscule
(54:53):
little thing compared to these huge trees. But it's just
incredible and it just makes you and it makes me
curious for to explore as much of the world as
I can, because this is just a tiny little part
of it, and you know that there's other stuff like
this out there. Absolutely, that's why we keep on traveling
(55:16):
to national parks. Hi, I'm Matt and I'm Brad. This
is park Landia and today's episode is about Redwood National
and State Parks in California. So three things that we
would bring. You know, we definitely would probably start off
(55:36):
with a kayak for myself at least um, but we
don't own one. So I guess I would have to
buy one first, but just in case. There's definitely a
lot of different places to rent kayaks from or do
tours from, so don't worry if you don't have a
kayak like myself, you can definitely get one. Plenty of
options for that. And then to go along with that
(55:57):
some sort of wet suit or waters a stent layer
like we wore when we went kayaking. Absolutely because water
shoes to water shoes, Yeah, because I think that's also
important for kayaking. And then if you're in certain areas
of the park, you could use it when you go
tide pooling along the coast, which is also a great
idea and of itself because you can see animals like
(56:18):
see stars and crabs, sea cucumbers, muscles, a whole, another whole,
like another ecosystem. Yes, And then, of course, because when
you're done kayaking, you're gonna need dry socks and dry shoes, right.
I didn't do that and I went on a trail
afterwards and I was miserable. So that's definitely something I've
learned from this trip is to always make sure you
(56:39):
have extra clothes to change into, especially if you're doing kayaking. Yeah,
a dry back up. And this is one of those
parks where within the span of one afternoon or just
a full day, you can do totally different different activities
like we did. We went kayaking the first half of
the day and then went right from there to a
long hike. So both of those activities require different sets
of a higher and especially footwear, so to have a
(57:02):
full backup at the ready is really helpful. Yes, And
of course we could bring checking at the National Parks
board game along with extra friends, because you have to
have a lot of friends to play that you don't
but we love that. We love sharing that memory with friends.
That's a good one. And then also this park, if
you're in a board game movie you should bring. We
have like a Jurassic Park board game, you know, and
(57:24):
what better place to play it than the park where
one of those movies just literally filmed. So just continue
with that that theme, um, And speaking of Durston Park,
I know that we've talked about that franchise a lot
on this podcast, but I think it's safe to say
that Redwood National and State Parks is really the episode
where it makes the most sense because this is a
(57:46):
place that is so unbelievably beautiful that one of the movies,
The Lost World, was literally filmed here. And not only that,
but this incredible place has been featured in Star Wars,
Netflix movies, and now our own family photos. Yeah, lots
of family does. It's forever engraved in our Most Cherished
Memories and in our DVD collection. Didn't You've been listening
(58:08):
to park Landia, a show about national parks. PARKLANDI is
the production of My Heart Radio, created by Matt Carouac,
Brad Caro Wak and Christopher has The otis produced and
edited by Mike John's. Our executive producer is Christopher hasiotis
our researcher. It's Jescelyn Shields. A special things goes out
to Gabrielle Collins, Christal Waters and the rest of the
Parklandia crew. And Hey listeners, If you're enjoying the show,
(58:30):
leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps other
people like you find our show. You can keep up
with us on social media as well. Check out our
photos from our travels on Instagram at park Landia Pod,
and join in on the conversation in our Facebook group
park Landia Rangers. From our podcast, My Heart radio, visit
the heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows, and as always, thank you for listening.
(59:00):
Gold D.