We drive though northern Nevada to Oregon and visit Crater Lake which still has 11 feet of snow. On the way we encounter herds of wild burros in the lonely desert.
The snowpack at Crater Lake is still 20 or 30 feet deep. The indians avoided this place because it is inhabited by spirits.
Then two days hiking in the giant redwood groves of California. They run to a diameter of 22 feet and a 360 foot height. The sequoia trees on the western side of the Cascade Mountains have diameters of up to 40 feet, but they are shorter than redwoods. One of the redwood groves is named the Amelia Earhart Grove.
I scrape a tree in Bay City, California and leave a dent in the RV.
The coast of Oregon is spectacular as we head north. I see a few late migrating whale spouts at dawn at Cape Blanco State park.
On 9 September, 1942, a Japanese submarine surfaced 25 miles off Cape Blanco. A modified Japanese Zero was assembled in eight minutes and Warrant Officer Fujita departed with two 170-pound thermite bombs to set fire to the forests.
Unfortunately, the fire danger was low that day and the bombs fizzled. In 1962 Fujita returned to Oregon and presented a 400 year old family samurai sword to the City of Brookings as a traditional pledge of peace. Fujita visited again in 1992 and planted a redwood at the bomb site as an act of apology to the forest.
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