Halloween and the Big Trees

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. It’s got all the good elements of ritual to it, costumes, masks, sounds, night, and obliquely somewhere in there, veneration of the dead. For one moment, one evening, everyone is something they’re not and somehow more themselves for it. The masks of everyday life get replaced with masks of our choosing, if only for one night. Plus, candy.

Back in Athens the kids really loved going to Boo at the Zoo, the local zoo gets all Halloween fun so it’s like a trip to the zoo plus costumes. Turns out Athens is far from the only place to have one of these so we crashed the Boo and the Zoo festival in Eureka.

We even managed to get some trick-or-treating in down in nearby Trinidad, which was completely enveloped in fog (natch) and just spooky enough to be fun.

We kept the car I rented to get the alternator for a few extra days because we decided we didn’t want to head north to check out the Redwoods proper with the bus. It’s been nice to see the ocean and all, but we also wanted to see the sun. Still, you can’t come all the way up here without showing the kids the tallest trees on earth.

We left the bus at Patrick’s Point and made a day trip up to the Redwood State and National parks. We hiked a few miles through a grove of the giant trees.