Well well well. I went on another camping trip this week.
In my search for more adventure in my life I left home again to go live outside in another remote part of the country, but this time I had a friend with me.
What made this trip so fun was how me and my friend Julian purposely did a minimum amount of planning. That means having a vague idea of where we wanted to go, where we were going to be sleeping, and what we were going to be doing.
Maybe to the average person this sounds a bit insane but to us it seemed like a great adventure and a chance to just force some uncertainty into our lives to where we can allow ourselves to live in the moment and figure it out on the fly.
We began our journey in Sacramento, where we left Thursday morning to the direction of Redwood National Park. After about a six hour drive we arrived at Gold Bluffs Beach. A small strip of beach along the California and Oregon coast. At this point it was getting dark and after driving all day, we needed a place to sleep asap.
Not to mention we only had about 40 miles of gas in the car and here we are exploring a whole remote coastline with no gas station in sight.
But we had to check out this beach. And let me tell you, it did not disappoint. I honestly had never seen anything like it. This campsite was directly next to the beach, with dense redwood forests on one side, and a huge sprawling gray sand beach on the other side.
Julian and I were speechless. After a day of driving this was the reward for all our hard work. We were so blown away we dedicated ourselves to stay here for the night. There were plenty of empty spots so we decided to try.
After talking to the employees at the kiosk in front of the park, they told us they were full (which we thought was a lie since we saw so many empty spots).
They recommended another camp spot called Prairie Creek that was just up the road as well as a few locations to go and get gas.
After getting to the nearest gas station with only 5 miles to spare, we make our way to Prairie Creek.
After Gold Bluffs, we were sure that no other place could possibly compare to how beautiful and majestic that place was, but Prairie Creek was pretty incredible too. It was in the middle of this humongous sprawling meadow that was surrounded by huge redwood trees and even had a group of elk just sitting in the middle of it.
Unfortunately, they were full too.
Okay so Plan C. The night before we actually booked a campsite just in case this exact situation would happen, but it turns out it was about an hour's drive away from the area we were in. And we were so excited about the area we were in so we wanted to stay as close as possible to it.
So we keep looking for camp spots. Just driving to every single campsite along the freeway, hoping and praying that they had at least one spot open for the night. The risk here was the more we looked, the darker it got so we were in a time crunch.
We went to another campsite, they were fully booked too.
At this point we were getting scared. It’s 8pm and we have nowhere to stay. I’m thinking we just cut our losses and drive the extra hour to our booked campsite and call it a day. But Julian decides to make one last stop at this private campground to see if they have any spots.
We found a place named Emerald City Campground and low and behold, they have one spot left. ONE SPOT LEFT. We were ecstatic and couldn't believe how lucky we were. We squeal and high five in line at the reservation desk and pay for our spot.
A long and successful day in the books.
Day Two
The second day is where shit gets serious. We decided to take mushrooms and go on a hike.
I had never done mushrooms while on a long nature hike, so this was going to be an interesting experience.
As we start hiking, the mushrooms begin to set in and I start to think, “Hm, I’m not sure if this was a good idea.”
The thought of hiking through a dense forest we’ve never been in before, on a trail we’ve never been on before, alone in the middle of the woods, was actually a little bit scary. This is the type of stupid stuff you hear about on the news when people go missing and you think, “what a bunch of idiots.”
But hey, we were already this far, we can’t stop now.
As we walk through this forest the shrooms start kicking in. We didn’t take that much, but we could definitely feel something happening. Looking back now, it probably wasn’t the best idea to be stuck on a 10 mile hike while high on a very potent psychedelic.
Along the way we stop at every creature or humungous tree that comes our way (especially the banana slugs, so many banana slugs).
At the risk of sounding a little bit insane, while we were hiking I began to see the forest and some sort of person with its own personality. Like if I could characterize it, it would be an old man. Someone who is old and wise, seen a lot of shit, immovable, and doesn’t care about anything.
It had an almost ancient and prehistoric feeling to it, like we had gone back in time or something.
It honestly spooked me a little bit, and gave me the feeling that if we fuck around too much, this place would not be kind to us and because of that, we had to respect it. It was here before us and will be here for much longer than us.
Side Note: Sometimes I felt like I saw human faces carved into the bark of the trees, which kind of freaked me out and I would act like I didn’t see it and keep walking.
After about three hours, we eventually made it to the beach (thank god). I felt almost as if we went through some sort of traumatic experience in that forest, and were happy to finally make it out of there alive.
We end up sitting on a log and eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while we watch the waves crash on the beach.
As we sit, we realize that if we want to get back before it gets dark, we have to leave immediately. After the experience we just had, the absolute last thing we wanted was to get stuck in this forest with the sun down. No fucking thank you.
At this point we’ve sobered up. Or at least, the seriousness of the situation caused us to really kick it into high gear. So head straight back into that forest with only one goal, get the fuck out of there as fast as we can.
After essentially sprinting through the hike that initially took us three hours, we managed to make it out in only about two. TWO HOURS!
As Julian would say after we got back, “It was a life or death situation.”
And it really was. Death was around the corner (not really).
It’s kind of funny to write this, because we basically did drugs in the woods and spooked the hell out of ourselves in the process. When in reality, a normal person probably saw us and thought it was just a normal day to go on a hike. While we on the other hand felt like we were fighting for our lives.
Final Thoughts
No deep or philosophical thoughts really. Just a fun trip with a friend and having an experience that I won't forget anytime soon. At one point I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go on the trip due to a third of our group having to drop out at the last minute.
But what I learned from this is to just say yes more. If I had decided not to go, I wouldn't have seen any of the amazing things I had seen and I wouldn’t have spent those days with a good friend.
It was a fun and memorable experience that I won’t forget anytime soon. And it proved to me that I should say yes to things more and that I should see things through more often, because you never know how it could end up.
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