Making the Most of It — a stop on the Avenue of the Giants.
We're into the last stretch, so let me give you the practical advice I'd give a friend.
First and most important: GET OUT OF THE CAR. I mean it. The Avenue is lovely from the driver's seat but it is a fundamentally different experience on foot, because the scale only lands when there's nothing between you and the tree. Founders Grove is the easy one — half a mile, flat, and it has the fallen giant. If you have longer, the Rockefeller Loop out on Bull Creek Flats is the finest short walk in the redwood world.
On photography, since everyone tries: your camera will fight you, because the dynamic range between the dark trunks and the bright canopy is brutal. Overcast days and foggy mornings are far better than sunshine. Put a person in the frame or you lose all sense of scale — a picture of just trees looks like a picture of any trees. And shoot upward along a trunk rather than across.
Practicalities: it's cool and damp here even in August, so bring a layer. There are campgrounds along the Avenue — Burlington, Hidden Springs, Albee Creek — and they book up in summer. Cell signal is patchy to nonexistent. And the gas stations are few and far between; fill up in Garberville or Fortuna rather than assuming.
Go slowly. That's the whole trick to this road.