Richard gave us a tip that we needed to go to Stout Grove, an amazingly scenic grove of redwoods and rumored location for the forest moon of Endor in the movie Starwars: Return of the Jedi. Simply put, no pictures do this place justice. It was one of the coolest places I’ve ever been to, dwarfed by giants and walking alone in this magical rain forest really did feel like another planet.

To get a sense of scale, here’s a shot of me standing in front of one of the trees (you may have to click on the image to see me).

I had always seen pictures of people driving through this giant redwoods, but was slightly disappointed when I didn’t see one anywhere. Turns out that only a few of these trees are still around and that all of them are on private land that you have to pay to access. Well, we happened upon one and had to check it out. I think it was worth the five bucks.

The rest of the day was spent driving down to Gilmore, CA (about an hour south of San Francisco) to spend some time with Kate’s cousin Kaci (and luckily Aunt Kelly who was also in town while Kaci’s husband was in China).

We attempted to stop by Sawyer Cellers in Napa to pick up a couple bottles of the family wine, but sadly they were closed at the time. Next time.