Newspaper Headlines from Here to There: Avenue of the Giants–What NOT to Do.
November 17, 2016, Thursday
Here is a helpful list of how NOT to travel with kids and a dog through the Avenue of the Giants.
- DO NOT confuse these terms–Avenue of the Giants and Valley of the Giants. They will give you different results in Google searches.
Valley of the Giants
This valley exists on some planet where kids like canned vegetables served to them by Jolly Green Giants.
The Avenue of the Giants exists just off CA Hwy 101, and there tall kids feel very small in the fading light.
2. DO NOT let your son ride on the console between you and The Hunni; and stick his head out of the sun roof and stare up at the giant trees; and wave at the passing cars through the sun roof; and feel the cold wind in his face. He might just have a great time, but we all know safety is super important with children because we need to keep them safe so they can grow up and do Extreme Sports . . .
. . .like jumping, . . .
. . .and bike riding.
3. DO NOT stop at tacky souvenir shops along the way. That $4.00 you spent on a “CA 101” sticker is just going onto your son’s Hannah Montana purple guitar that he got at the Homeschool Christmas White Elephant Party, and we all know that a purple Hannah Montana guitar (even though it has new strings and can be taken to the beach) is really not an acceptable instrument for a 16 year old boy, and definitely not worth the $4.00 “CA 101” sticker your son put on it.
4. DO NOT take a picture of a map. EVERYONE has Google Maps and only someone from 1980 who. . .
pegged their jeans, . . .
permed their hair, . . .
wore two colored shirts at the same time–with both collars up,. . .
desperately wanted a Coke rugby shirt,. . .
and thought pink frosted lip stick made you look like Cheryl Tiegs , would take a photo of a map. Like Totally!
5. DO NOT waste time staring up at the trees.
They are just 200-300 feet tall and have lived 900-3,000 years.
Pictures completely do them justice, so no need to continually stop and stare and oooh and aaah.
6. DO NOT take the kids. Kids these days need to be highly entertained with amusement parks, large groups of friends their same age, i phones, and expensive outings. Do not take a family trip to a National Park. The kids will be bored and unimpressed. They will not have fun in the fresh air. Besides we all know that according to the latest study, fresh air contains germs. And probably gluten and GMOs.
7. DO NOT stop the car in the middle of the road to just pause for a moment and get a feeling for the space. Car stopping is not allowed. Neither is stopping the car and laying on the ground to get a picture.
8. DO NOT drive fast with all the windows rolled down and the radio blasting. Driving fast is the opposite of stopping, so it is automatically wrong. And also, we are in a nature preserve here and trying to be one with nature and so therefore, driving fast with carbon emissions is bad. Wrong. And not acceptable. But if you do drive fast be careful not to hit the trees that are 3 inches off the road. They are sometimes marked with some non-reflective, yellow spray paint, but definitely not to OHSAS standards.
9. DO NOT think about how long the trees have lived and how insignificant your little life might be. That might give you low thoughts of self, and we all know that we are super important because we all “want to make a difference”. So just repeat this, “You are important. You are special. You are the reason Starbucks makes lattes.”
10. DO NOT stop at any National/State Park Visitor Centers. They just have local animal dioramas and information on trees and leaves and logging. Also they are free, so of course they can’t be any good.
There are no movies to entertain the kids. They have exhibits on flooding and old newspaper clippings and who reads a newspaper these days?
TRIGGER WARNING! TRIGGER WARNING! There is a cut down tree in the following image. Only proceed if you can handle seeing a tree cut down for human purposes.
This is a tree that was cut down and made into a traveling car. The center was hollowed out to make a RV-like car.
11. DO NOT take a hike. All you will see is trees.
Amazingly tall, wondrously wide, simply majestic trees.
The kiddos will gaze up most of the time. I am sure that it is bad for their necks and gizzards. After all, kids are designed to look down at iphones and screens.
Nature won’t always look perfect, and that might affect their self esteem.
They might even get cold or wet or rained on or mud on their shoes.
The famed Avenue of the Giants is in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park in California, but better just stay home.
–Your Cautious Reporter
My Whit's End 
Love the pictures…and the trees!! I’ll just ignore all your “don’ts
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