Illinois River Valley and more, July 10.

We got an early started and headed down Highway 199 South West  back towards California and the Illinois River Valley.  The Illinois River has been designated a Wild and Scenic River.  The water are suppose to be crystal clear. We took a forest service road which started out a paved and continued on as very narrow windy road down into the canyon. At first Joel didn't want to go on the gravel road because he "would get the truck dirty". The major rains from the day before had cleaned off all the grime and dirt.  Give me a break!  I reminded him that we are driving truck that is supposed to get dirty.

We stopped at several pull outs along the way with vistas of rugged terrain.  A couple of the pullouts were trail heads and the trails down into the canyon  looked like they were very well maintained.

At the bottom of the canyon we arrived at a really cool picnic spot with deep clear calm water.

We ate our lunch and languished a while, letting Tara play in the water.

We headed back up the canyon and continued on the Redwood Highway towards the coast.  The redwoods are beautiful, but there was nowhere to pull off and take photos and it was beginning to rain.  We continued on to Brookings and stopped at Harris Beach for my beach fix.

We drove over to the marina for a seafood dinner and headed back to the park.  Very long day.   Tomorrow we leave the park and start heading towards Portland via Eugene/Leaburg for a day or two.