June 23, 2026 Americoast Inn, Brookings OR to Big Lagoon County Park, CA (north of Trinidad)

Deb here. We checked out of the motel by 8 or so and had breakfast and coffee at McDonald’s. We drove south on Rt. 101, stopping at the Redwood National and State Parks Visitor Information Center. The volunteer kindly gave us a newspaper with all the info about the 4 different state and national parks and her recommendations about hikes and drives.

We struck out for the Howland Road Loop and it turned out to be a spectacular drive. The road is dirt for quite a while and narrow, passing right between the huge redwoods. At the Mill Creek trailhead we parked and hiked along Mill Creek, eventually coming to the Grove of Titans. Wow, what a trail! We were up close and personal with the big guys and all the ferns and green understory. What a treat.

From there we traveled back on Howland Rd to Rt 199 and stopped at the Hiouchi Visitor Center for more information. The interpretive panels outside really helped us sort out the differences between coastal redwoods and sequoias, which we learned are found at higher elevations in the eastern Sierras. While there I asked the ranger about a chance of campground availability at Jedediah Smith NP Campground and he suggested we drive there and ask the ranger, so that’s what we did. She told us we could come back at 2 to see if anything opened up (it was 12:45 by this time), so we went back across the road to the visitor center and made lunch, read and napped for an hour.

I was there right at 2 but unfortunately nothing opened up so we decided to head south on 101 and see what popped up as an alternative. The drive was gorgeous, and we took the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway, a 10 mile side road that paralleled 101. Once again we were driving through the big guys and it was beautiful.

Cell service was super spotty to non-existent, but I managed to find a private campground near Trinidad that looked great and I called the park. They had room for us, but in the meantime we saw Big Lagoon County Park and thought we’d give it a go. We pulled in and found a few sites available for $27/night. Not bad for this area. We took a walk down to the beach, read, made dinner and called it a night.