Eureka, Shelley's house, and Arcata, CA

Our trek thus far:



Feeling good. Guess I just wrote a blog at a time I was just a little in the dumps. Shall we proceed?

So we spent the night in Myers Flat which is on the edge of the Humboldt Redwoods State Park. Stayed at an RV park at it was pretty much gravy. The next day we start making our way to Eureka with the intention of staying at Anna's parents' old time friend's house.

On our way up US 101 we drove through The Avenue of the Giants. It is this amazing road where all of these huge redwoods have been preserved so that you can just be in awe of them. We were driving around at like 10am yet it seemed like evening time because the forest did such an effective job of blotting out the sun.

Pretty big yea?

In another tree

Yea way up there!

Maander looking like a thug

So we roll into Eureka and decide to take an amble around town and get to know it. We heard previously that there are a lot of victorians there due to how well off the region was with logging during the era where victorians were built. Walking around was quite enjoyable. Eureka really feels like Sacramento in a lot of ways. It was flat for the most part and easy to navigate around the more touristy spots. After getting some lunch at a co-op we headed to The Carson House. Which is like a must see building in Eureka. Carson was this lumber baron and built the most elaborate home for himself there. What sucked was that it wasn't open to the public. Apparently some high society exclusive club owns it and uses it for their devious purposes.

Amazing looking church in Eureka

On the promenade in Eureka

Carson House

Kinda crazy about Carson. Apparently after building his house and getting up there in years he started becoming insane. He would spend his days making stakes and became preoccupied with vampires. I don't blame him either because this region looks a ton like Port Angeles. Well after years of making stakes and going and hunting for vampires and never finding them he snapped. He started thinking people close to him were vampires and he would stake them through the heart and kill them. He had become so powerful of a lumber baron people really couldn't do much about it. Well this went on until he ended up accusing his best friend. Carson caught his wife and his best friend cheating together. Then a month later it turned out Carson thought his best friend was a vampire and killed him. Finally, his friend was a big enough person in the community where they just said this has to stop and hanged Carson. Pretty crazy.

After Eureka we made our way to my in law's friend's house. Her name is Shelley and she lives on a farm with a big red barn with some goats, horses, chickens, and a dog. We met her, me for the first time and Anna hadn't seen her in a very long time. We chit-chatted and walked around the farm with her introducing us to all of her animals. She brought us to the back of her property and showed us some early 30 year olds couple property. They had just started to farm. Turns out there is a movement in Humboldt county to try and make it completely self sustainable. People are super into growing their own food relying on the community for other needs and making sure they can live this way forever.

That's where goat cheese comes from

Miniature Horse

Anna and Shelley w/ the animals

Shelley made some excellent enchiladas and we had some goat cheese and milk. We probably ate more than we should have but it was quite good. We then showered up and headed to bed.

In Eureka we heard about a town called Ferndale which is a dairy farming community that became very well off and have tons of victorians and great architecture. We decided to head out there for a few hours before making our trek to Arcata then down hwy 299 to Weaverville. Ferndale had a very nice main street with lots of shops and many majestic churches a surprising amount compared to the population. I think the population there is like 1.5k and there were at least 3 huge churches there. Either everyone goes to church there or most of the pews are empty come Sunday.

Another

Ferndale

Playing the guitar before lunch

Next stop, Arcata. Shelley said she really loved going to Arcata because it reminded her of Berkeley in the 60s. It is where Humboldt State University is and we knew we would see lots of young people and dreadlocks. These people put me to shame when it comes to personifying a hippy aesthetic in todays time. I really need to up my game :) We drove through the college then made our way to Arcata Plaza. Parked and went walking. We ended up by this really cool coffee shop called Mokka Cafe. Its a finnish bath house and coffee hang out. You could rent a sauna or hot tub and get your java on. All the saunas and hot tubs were booked but we stayed for a cup a joe. It was easily the coolest coffee shop I have ever been to. Nothing in Sacramento compares. It was amazing that they made a bath house and it totally didn't feel like the pervert hang out where who knows what happens. There was a cat just chilling in the lounge area and that provided a really cool vibe (I miss you Titus).

Yum!

this is where the hot tubs and saunas are

We walked a bit in the Arcata Neighborhood Forest then made our way through hwy 299. 299 was yet another big challenge for Maander consisting mostly of big uphills this time with not so much the twists. He made it like a champ and then we camped out here in Weaverville.

A tree on top of a tree pretty cool

So today we will just be meandering around Weaverville and then heading to Redding. I left my black jacket and green beanie at Shelley's house so I am going to have to go to a thrift store to get an appropriate jacket, I only have that super heavy one now. Peace y'all things have definitely been better since Fort Bragg.

Oh and I was joking about the Carson story.