Muir Woods National Monument

So we got to our first redwood park a bit too late (even though we wake up at 6 nowadays, which is a surreal feeling with Seamus, I don't think this has ever happened to him before) because we had to wait for the shops to open at 10. And apparently the parking lots fill up at around 9:30... Fortunately we took a wrong turn, and drove on from the park, and then we pulled over on the side of the road to turn around and figure out what we want to do. And then we realised that there's no "no parking" signs here so we can just leave the car here! A guy was just leaving with his truck and he confirmed that we can park here (we also asked some unrelated traffic questions, as some things are still vague about the traffic system here) so we had free parking a 10 minute hike away instead of having to wait 2 hours for the privilege of paying for it, not bad. We walked the longest available trail of 2 miles around the park, constantly stopping to admire new trees rising to amazing heights. It also smelled amazing, and literally sounded like fake forest noises from a movie. There were nice signs of the side of the road too, for example a photo of the founders of the UN gathering in these exact woods after the death of Roosevelt. Finally we looked around the gift shop, considered buying about 10 different items, and then walked away with a pressed penny instead. It's actually the first time I used one of these, and it actually makes for a cute souvenir for cheap, I might just start collecting these from now on.Read more