Roadtrip! Lake Tahoe, Redwoods, Oregon beaches, Bend

A few photos from our late-July roady to the West Coast--an 8-day whirlwind tour that took us from Lake Tahoe to Crescent City, CA, up the Oregon Coast, and finally settling in Bend, OR, for a couple of days.

Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe.

Baldwin Beach, Lake Tahoe.

Golden sands of Baldwin Beach.

Redwood Creek Beach State Park near Orick, CA. The kids loved the beach, and if it was up to them, we would have spent the entire vacation with our toes in the sand.

Baldwin Beach sunset.

Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park near Crescent City, CA. The redwoods in the Sierras (Yosemite N.P., Sequoia N.P.) may be fatter, but the redwoods along California's north coast are the tallest trees in the world.

Stout Grove.

Four-inch-long banana slug along the trail in Stout Grove.

Heceta Head Lighthouse near Florence, OR.

Devil's Elbow State Park.

Devil's Elbow Beach. OR.

Heceta Head.

Cape Creek Bridge.

Sand angels at Bayshore Beach, Waldport, OR.

Kelp wrangling, Bayshore Beach.

Bayshore Beach.

Tide pooling at Seal Rock, OR.

Sea anemones as Seal Rock.

Ren points out a geologic nonconformity at Elephant Rock between overlying jointed basalt and underlying Yaquina sandstone. Fourteen million years ago, the lava erupted from a vent hundreds of miles away in eastern Oregon and flowed westward to the ocean.

Cummins Creek Loop is an excellent multi-use trail at Cape Perpetua Scenic Area near Yachats, OR.

A Pacific sideband snail inches along the Cummins Creek Trail.

Huge banana slugs were all over the trail at higher elevations on the Cummins Creek Loop. Unfortunately, I couldn't avoid them all and there were a few casualties.

High above Cummins Creek in  the Siuslaw National Forest.

Old -growth forest along Cummins Ridge.

View from Cape Perpetua.

Thor's Well at Cape Perpetua Scenic Area.

After spending some time near Waldport and Newport, OR, we headed inland to spend a few days in Bend, within the shadow of the Cascades. Here, Broken Top towers over Todd Lake.

Todd Lake in the Deschutes National Forest.

Thousands of tadpoles in Todd Lake made the water appear black.

While in Bend, I woke up early and knocked off 10,358-ft South Sister, the third highest peak in Oregon. Too many photos to stuff in here, so stay tuned for an additional post.

We really enjoyed Bend and have vowed to return. I only rode a small sample of the 100s of miles of singletrack surrounding Bend--I've got much more work to do.

Capping the trip, we stopped at Crater Lake on the way home. I'm glad we did--the color of the lake is unreal.