Chandelier Tree (Drive Thru Tree)

Something I recommend everyone do at least once in their life is drive up the 101. Danny and I both agree this was our favorite vacation. We started in Monterey Bay and finished at the Washington/Oregon border. We would have loved to continue all the way up Washington but we had to be at work on Monday in Spokane, Washington where we lived at the time. We went whale watching, toured Alcatraz, spent a day at the worlds largest exotic petting zoo and held baby tigers and a baby leopard, and of course we drove through all three redwood trees and Avenue of the Giants. We had this amazing car with a huge gash in the front that looked like someone took a chainsaw to it, the headlights-duct taped, it was definitely not the prettiest car out there, but it got insanely great gas mileage. Seriously, we could go forty miles to the gallon in that bad boy. On this particular trip we slept in the car, but don’t worry we would get a hotel every two or three days so we could shower and give our backs a break. We looked rough, probably smelled awful, but it was so much fun! We had no schedule, no agenda, we would pick up fliers from gas stations and plan our activities from there. We stopped at every “tourist trap”, went our own leisurely pace (we had two weeks for this trip) and took every cliché photo out there. We loved all three drive thru trees, each for their own reasons.
One thing we loved about Chandelier Tree was that it had a gift shop, we are avid smashed penny collectors, we get one everywhere we visit if we can, needless to say we were excited about the gift shop in hopes of getting a smashed penny and we were not disappointed. Although their gift shop was one of the more unique gift shops it was full of Sasquatch paraphernalia; that is to be expected though in the heart of big foot country. In addition to the gift shop they had a poem worth reading, a nice little field for pets, a “tree wagon”, a tipped over redwood stump you can climb in (perfect for photos), and of course a tree to drive through.
This tree was huge! All redwoods are incredibly large, but this one seemed insanely tall, we could not get a picture of the entire tree with our camera. We had plenty of room to get through this one, of course our car is rather small. We read reviews that said only a car would fit through it, however, while we were there one of those older style white astro vans pulling an enclosed trailer made it through. It was a tight squeeze and I was impressed they got through, not sure if I would have risked it, but for those of you more daring than I am, you may be able to get through, even if you are not in a car.This trip seemed to be our lucky trip, every single tree we drove through we were the only ones there when we got there and had ample time to take tons of photos, rotate drivers, and take more photos, allowing us to get the most out of the $5 cost.