Off On a Grand Adventure!

This is just the beginning of a whole lot of travel posts fora bucket list trip that was a LONG time coming. We spent a long day of travel, from San Francisco to Montreal, and then an overnight flight to Milan. Having to stay masked for over 20 hours was not fun, especially while trying to sleep, but we were just so glad we could finally go on the trip.

And finally, we landed in Italy! We were all pretty tired, and some of us were a little cranky (Peanut wasn't feeling great when we left and he really struggles with motion sickness, even on airplanes, so it had been a pretty rough 24 hours.)

But we still had a 3 hour drive ahead of us. Peanut was NOT happy to get back into another moving vehicle and it actually took some convincing to get him to get in, especially when it turned out it was a new car with a strong smell, but we finally talked him into it. The drive was fairly uneventful in the end and we made it to Venice.

We had a spot reserved to park the car for the next couple of nights and a ferry to take us over to the island of Venice.

And then, we were there--in the city of alleys and canals and old buildings and so many places to get lost.

The kids were immediately enchanted.

Everything was exactly what I remembered. I love this city. It's been 23 years since I was here last, but a city this old stays remarkable the same.

Enchanting or not, we were all pretty tired. And hungry. Peanut was really struggling. Honestly, the trip so far was already turning out to be even worse than we thought it might be with him--he's not very patient with change and discomfort, so traveling is sometimes hard. And our Airbnb was farther away, and more difficult to get to than I'd realized, so it was quite the walk.

But we finally made it to our first home away from home. The apartment was interesting--3 bedrooms, and a living room that also closed off like a bedroom, and a kitchen in the back. Tall windows overlooking alleys on both sides, and probably 16 foot ceilings.

The rooms were small, but it was nice to have some space to spread out. We got settled and then went out to find some dinner.

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We found a place on the Grand Canal that had great sea food and pasta. 

It was a little touristy, but still so good, and we didn't have it in us to spend much time searching at this point.

Bean loved the ravioli. All the food was good, but once again, Peanut had a hard time and really just needed to go to bed so dinner was as quick as we could imagine. At one point, our waiter heard Peanut fussing and brought out a dessert, which we thought was so kind, until our bill came and they'd charged us $13 for a tiramisu that Peanut barely even touched. And suddenly we realized just how touristy it was.

We had a view of the Rialto Bridge from our table. It was so fun to see all of these places that we've seen in books and movies.

Poor Peanut. Daddy-o carried him home which he seemed pretty happy with.

The Grand Canal just after sunset. 

Once we got Peanut home and in bed, the other two kids and I ran out to find water and a few snacks to have on hand in the morning. 

We took the long way and did a little exploring down the small alleys and over little canals, ending in dead ends and stairs into the water, and all of the magic of Venice. Bug and Bean were loving it and didn't want to go back, but the sooner we got to bed, the sooner our first full day in the city could begin!

Day 5: A Couple More Stops

We had to say goodbye to our home in the redwoods today, but we still had a couple adventures on the drive home. 

First up, a stop near McKinleyville to see the harbor seals and their pups. I think we were a few weeks too late to see young babies, but there were still plenty of seals hanging out. We watched them from the bluffs on the other side of the river, laughed at how they move on land, and then back into the car.

Stop #2 was the north end of Avenue of the Giants, at what might be MY favorite spot in the world. This sorrel covered spot in the redwoods is so incredibly beautiful.

In another nostalgic hike, we ran through these little trails, just like we did last year when we were trying to find an albino tree before it got dark.

Found the tree again, but had even more fun racing through the sorrel trails.

I'm not sure I can really pick a favorite spot because all of these forests are incredible, but this one is up at that top.

While we were in the area, we also hiked the Drury-Chaney trail, which was another great couple miles of easy redwood hiking. Climbing this stump added a little extra challenge.

And climbing on this fallen tree.

Redwoods are the best natural playground.

Our final views of this green.

Bean was playing around with the sorrel and using depth perception tricks to make it look like a giant forest with us as little people. It does look pretty cool from the underside.

And that was it for our adventures. The drive home was fairly uneventful--Bean got some practice in, we stopped at In-n-Out for a late lunch/early dinner, and our animals all made it home safe and sound. We had almost 23 hours to add to our 1000 hours challenge, 100s of pictures to sort through, and lower stress levels. Such a needed giveaway that I would gladly go on again next week.

Day 4: Nostalgia Hiking

We saved our hikes from the last trip to do on our last day. 

We fell completely in love with Trillium Falls last time--it was our first hike in the area, and it was drizzly and green and incredible. Well, with a forecast of showers all day on Monday, we thought we could recreate the magic. And it lived up to the memories. This picture above is Daddy-o's favorite spot on earth--the bridge, the ferns, the trees. It's a pretty good spot. 

So much new life growing from the fallen redwoods.

And then the falls. Not huge, but so pretty. And we even managed to get a decent family shot! That's a rare occurrence. 

We hung out at the bridge/falls for awhile. This is where we turned around last time, but we weren't as rushed this time, so we decided we'd go on and do the rest of the loop.

But first, more waterfall pictures.

Peanut always wants to do a silly one.

We love bridges. Why do they make hikes so much more fun?

There are just so many giant trees. You'd think it would stop being impressive, but they continue to wow us.

This patch of skunk cabbage was huge--like 2-3 feet tall!

Right about here, where we stopped for lunch, we realized that Bug's hat was no longer hanging on his backpack. Right then, a couple hikers passed us and when we asked, they confirmed that yes, his hat was back there. They had put it up on a log, but they said it was way back, closer to the falls, and the beginning part of the trail, so we decided that the best thing to do would be to finish the loop, which was only another mile or so, and then hike back through our favorite part of the loop to get the hat.

So, we got to see more of this than we'd planned. And another view of the falls, and we did find the hat!

Another favorite spot! So many ferns!

I used to think the term "forest bathing" was a little weird, but there is really no better way to describe the sensation of soaking up all of this beauty and peace. And spending big chunks of the day wandering through this incredible forests feels just as refreshing and cleansing as any bath I've every taken.

This trail was also one of the best for nature finds! Banana slugs, awesome fungi, two different types of snails, tons of millipedes, and two northern red-legged frogs! The frog was a really fun find--not something we typically see.

Then, we went to the Prairie Creek Trail which was the other spot we had explored last year. We didn't really have plans to do the full trail we'd done before, but ended up going for a couple miles again.

We kept looking for cool nature finds.

We tried out all the potential "homes" we could move into.

We walked through trees.

And then we ended with some playtime down by the creek.

Skipping rocks, finding fresh water snails,

and crossing on fallen logs.

It was such a fantastic, drizzly, sometimes rainy, day of reminiscing about our favorite spots from last year. I love getting to do things we've already fallen in love with, and explore new places, too. There are still plenty of new hikes up here to keep us busy for many more return trips.

It's also nice that everyone in the family can hike for several miles now without much complaining. Peanut didn't always want to keep going, but he did it anyway. And most days, he was lost in his head, inventing new languages or coming up with story plots and characters, so he'd keep walking for miles before he even realized how long we'd been going. I think this day was another 8 mile day between the two hikes. We were all pretty wiped out by the end. Over 20 miles in three days is no joke! 

Our last night was spent grilling pork tenderloin, watching the baby birds we'd discovered in the shed behind our house be fed, and watching Spiderman. This getaway was just what we needed, and we still had a stop to make on the way home.