Where's the s'mores?

For those that like road trips, I recommend Klamath. Especially if you're in Humboldt County.

It's about an hour drive north of Arcata and has two amazing sights: the Paul Bunyan Sky trail and the Jet ski Boat tour. If you walk quickly past the tall statue of Paul Bunyan and Babe, his blue ox, you probably can easily avoid the interaction with the guy who they have do the voice. He tries to engage everyone's attention and yes, on top of the Mr. Green Jellybean moment, I too, made a small mistake by looking up at the statue, no doubt being caught on their video feed and he too make an innocent pass at me. "Excuse me, you there in the black coat, where are you rushing off to? Where are you from?" I quickly replied New York and ran into the gift shop. All those that want to talk to a statue? He's waiting in Klamath.

The hike itself was relatively short but they did have some interesting facts and close-ups with redwoods. When we make mistakes, we're expected to apologize. When Nature goofs up, it becomes an episode of Ripley's Believe It or Not or becomes a popular place to hold weddings. The sky tram was worth the ticket of admission as you got an aerial view of these trees leading to some amazing pictures at the top of the observation desk. 5 minutes later, we found the Jet Ski Boat Tour Dock.

As we got off to a start in an old Coast Guard boat, we noticed a bunch of sea lions and harbor seals. Not exactly the most interesting thing as I've seen them in Catalina, the Bronx Zoo and at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. However, 20 minutes later, we came across a black bear and her cub foraging for food. I think the driver was more enamored with the sight than any of us were which gave all of us the chance to take a lot of pictures. Soon enough there was this smoky smell, like a campfire that wafted down the river. It was rather familiar as during our drive through Humboldt, we smelled it several times. All I could think of was, must be a nice campfire, hope someone brought s'mores. The truth? Thousands of old redwood trees had been burning in Northern California for 1-2 months. This is what happens when you go on vacation- you forget to check the news.

The tour was quite informative and interesting, detailing the history of the Klamath River and taking us to see campsites that can only be reached by boat. Yes. That's it. People here seem to camp for fun and do it in places where they have to bring all their supplies with them or get this boat company to bring it to them. The first observation? Campers are very messy. Litter everywhere. The second? They are very friendly and love to wave. The trip is without a doubt, quite fun and involved getting a little wet through the fast 360 turns.

And please. Listen to him. When he makes that spin, hold onto something or someone. I figured I could escape Newton's Law and ended up sliding about 5 inches to my left, luckily holding onto the person next to avoid hitting the couple to my left. How did I end up in Klamath? Tourist Brochures. Sometimes, it pays to go to tourist centers and grab a few papers along the way. Now, if only one of the campers would've made us some s'mores . . .