Crater Lake & Redwoods National Parks

On July 20th, we visited Crater Lake National Park. It was stunning! We lucked out with the sun shining at the first part of our visit, which made the lake the most magnificent shade of blue! I've never seen anything like it. 

{we had a picnic lunch inside the park & had a cute little deer trot right past us}

{a patch of snow near our picnic spot...couldn't keep these Alaskan kids out of it!}

Then we headed to our hotel in Medford, Oregon & had dinner at Panera before calling it a night.

{elevator photo courtesy of Brady!}

The next day we headed to the Redwoods, which is home to the world's tallest trees! The magnitude of these trees was incredible. I kept thinking of our skinny little birch trees in Alaska compared to these monstrosities--so hard to believe!

While we were in the Redwoods visitor's center before entering the park, we saw it mentioned on a sign that there were banana slugs in the Redwoods. Brady said he didn't want to leave if we didn't see a banana slug...as luck would have it, he spotted this little guy on one of our hikes! Mission accomplished!

After exploring the Redwoods, we headed to our hotel in Eureka, California.