trees of mystery
After the hidden beach, my next destination was down the 101 at the Trees of Mystery, where I was greeted by a gigantic statue of Paul Bunyan, who is either wearing a black fleece undershirt or else is showing more chest hair than I should ever want to own in this or any other lifetime. I guess this falls under the ‘roadside attraction’ category — it’s not really a theme park, although it does have a ride. It’s a hike through an area of the redwood forest wherein there are a number of interesting trees growing within a mile or so of each other. Immediately upon entering, for example, you’ll find yourself looking at the Family Tree, which has a dozen trees growing out of the same trunk. As you can see in this underexposed photo, this involves some of the trees growing horizontally out of the main trunk, and others growing vertically out of those trees and out of the branches of the main tree.
After following the path for a while and taking in the Lightning Tree and the awesome Cathedral Tree and the truly titanic Brotherhood Tree you get a chance to ride a cable car up the hill to a little platform where you can take in the sea, and tops of the trees, and all the surrounding mountains. Oh, and an osprey nest!
This was another place I could have spent all day in, walking among the trees and breathing in that pure air, but the afternoon was dragging on and I knew that I still had a ways to go before I could call it a night. Still, I got a few good photos. You can see them all here.
I went to Trees of Mystery a couple times when I was very young… the trees you mention I remember (and, of course, who could forget Paul Bunyan and Babe The Blue Ox?)… but I don’t think the cable car was there back then.
In looking at the old, crappy, yellowed photos of Paul Bunyan I have, there’s no texture visible, so I always assumed that was a black shirt he was wearing. From looking at your photo, however, it’s clearly the same texture as the hair on his face and head, which means Paul Bunyan es muy macho in the chest hair department.
But not so macho in the pants department… I just noticed that the poor bastard has no bulge in his drawers!
yeah, that’s chest hair. compare it to the beard.
every time i wander the redwoods i try and take pictures thinking THESE WILL COME OUT GREAT. but really, it’s one of those things that photographs just can’t capture. you sort of have to be there. glad you were there.
(did you see any ewoks?)
man this takes me back to my childhood. i used to love paul bunyan and that whole magical tree area but it took me until just now to realize that he’s the gabe kaplan of fictional chest hair!
Dave2, it’s funny, it took me really scrutinizing this photograph to figure out that’s his chest hair. I sure didn’t think of it standing there. Fortunately Babe more than made up for him in the ‘bulge’ department.
Brandon, I know, it’s so hard to get good pictures of any of it that really convey the experience. And the Ewoks formed most of the kitchen staff at the local restaurants, they’ve fallen on hard times since George Lucas declined to cast them in the new Star Wars movies. They sure got a lot of hair in my food.
Hilly, now I think I’ll forever be known as that guy who outed Paul for being the hairiest fictional character around.