road winds among the redwoods of Avenue of the Giants

The Avenue of the Giants is a scenic highway in Northern California, U.S.A., running through Humboldt Redwoods State Park. It is an old alignment of U.S. Route 101, and continues to be maintained by the state as State Route 254.

Weott is a census-designated place in Humboldt County, California. It is located 375 km north of San Francisco, California and 40 km due west of the Pacific Ocean. Lower Weott is situated at an elevation of 100m along the Avenue of the Giants and in the flood plain of the South Fork of the Eel River. The population was 288 at the 2010 census. Note that Weott is not related to Camp Weeott [sic], a fishing village established ca 1925 and destroyed in the 1955 flood. Camp Weeott was located 60km northwest of Weott, near Ferndale, California.

Due to flooding in 1955 and 1964, nearly all residents now live in the hills above the flood plain, mostly at elevations of 120m - 200m. The greater area of Weott encompasses the Bull Creek, Dyerville, South Fork, Camp Grant and Burlington areas. Weott's local services are run by the Weott Community Service District, which controls the town's sewage treatment facility and water supply. The town's water originally came from a property 1.5km east of Weott. It now comes from a spring west of town, across the Eel River. The California State Parks has tried to provide Weott with alternatives to the spring, which is on State Parks land, including constructing a well on the Weott-side of the river in 2003. This well had too much sediment, though, and was not usable. The WCSD has surveyed lands in the surrounding watershed but has yet to find an alternative water source. In summer, early morning and late evening fog typically protect the area from temperature extremes. Though daytime highs occasionally reach into the high 30s, they are more typically below 30°C. Due to its proximity to the ocean and its position in the shadow of 1 030m-high Grasshopper Peak, the area has an intense rainy season lasting from November through May. Locals report typical annual accumulations of 200 cm, though the range is 70 cm to 250 cm. Due to its moist climate, the town is surrounded on most sides by redwoods. Though most of the redwoods are second growth, the adjacent Humboldt Redwoods State Park has nearly 7 000 hectares of old growth and includes Rockefeller Forest, the largest contiguous stand of old growth redwoods in the world. Weott is located close to Giant Tree, a 108m-tall redwood, and the Dyerville Giant, a 113m-tall redwood that toppled in 1991. Due to a lack of water storage capacity, Weott sometimes suffers from water rationing in the summers.

U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101, is an important north–south U.S. highway that runs through the states of California, Oregon, and Washington, on the West Coast of the United States. It is also known as El Camino Real (The Royal Road) where its route along the southern and central California coast approximates the old trail which linked the Spanish missions, pueblos, and presidios. It merges at some points with California Highway 1.

Though U.S. Route 101 remains a major coastal north–south link along the Pacific coast north of San Francisco, it has been replaced in overall importance for transport through the West Coast states by Interstate 5, which is more modern in its physical design, goes through more major cities, and has more direct routing due to significantly easier geography over much of the route. Route 101 is a major parallel freeway or highway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and is an alternative to the Interstate for most of its length. In 1964, California truncated its southern terminus in Los Angeles, as Interstate 5 replaced it. The old road is known as county road S-21 or Historic Route 101 in northern San Diego County.

The nearly 2,500 km (1,550 mi)-long highway's "northern" terminus is in Tumwater, Washington: the route remains along the Olympic Peninsula's coastal perimeter west, north, and east; the northernmost point on the highway is in Port Angeles. The southern terminus of U.S. 101 is in Los Angeles at the East Los Angeles Interchange, the world's busiest freeway interchange.