Driving through a redwood

With not much to do in this area but check out the giant redwoods, we decided to take a drive over to the Shrine Drive-Thru Tree.

According to famousredwoods.com, the Shrine Drive Thru Tree is the oldest of the three drive-through coast redwoods. It’s a chimney tree whose trunk was hollowed out by fire, possibly by a lightning strike more than a century ago. The Shrine became a popular tourist attraction after the owner widened the opening in the trunk to 7ft by 7ft to accommodate vehicles. In the beginning horses pulled wagons through the tree, and after the Avenue of the Giants was paved, it became the first major roadside attraction of the new Redwood Highway.

It was neat to drive through a tree, but it’s so tight that there’s no way to get out a take a picture when the jeep was inside. To put it in context, we parked in front of one inside Humboldt Redwoods State Park. To say these trees are huge is an understatement.

All in all it was a nice drive and was something we were looking forward to doing.

We’ll still be here next week for work before heading back south to civilization. 

Until then

Safe travels