A couple weeks ago I took the family to visit my old high school friend Anthony and his family in McKinleyville, California. It was quite an adventure!
The drive up was good, and not quite as far as first expected, about 6 hours or so from South Bay. We made a short stop to drive thru a tree, literally. I learned there’s a few trees where you can actually do this; we visited the Chandelier tree (below). Then, a little later up the highway, we saw a Bigfoot crossing sign.
Our hosts were great, and they sure showed us the outdoor classics of Humboldt county (not the marijuana though, sorry to disappoint!). But first, on the night we arrived, my friend took me out for beers with his buddies from work: about ten professors from nearby Humboldt State University. They were definitely not reserved as one might expect, but quite the opposite; fun, goofy, beer-pounding guys. And I guess I live in “Central California”, as the locals there claim that area of the state the true “Northern California”.
The highlight of the visit was probably walking through the giant redwood forest in the Redwood National Park. My kids pretended they were Ewoks, creatures from the Star Wars movie Return of the Jedi. Many of the trees are very very wide, about 300 feet tall, and can be 1,000 years old. We saw numerous large yellow slugs called banana slugs (yuck!)
We spent an afternoon in Arcata, a groovy hippie town which is home to the university. Lots of great coffee, organic food, and free spirits. The farmers market in downtown Arcata was fun, even had a bluegrass band. One ingenious woman sat on the curb with a typewriter and a sign that read “Poem Store“.
We also did some light hiking and walked along a few beaches, and even saw a bunch of seals hanging out on a sand bar. A couple swam pretty close to us, too.
We stayed overnight on the long journey home as we drove south down the coast on Highway 1 (rather than 101 as on the way up). We stopped at a couple of cool little towns, Fort Bragg and Mendocino. We stayed at cabin which was fair, but was totally worth it due to a hot tub overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The four of us took a nice, scenic dip in our underwear!
The next day we drove by some cows, and had a great brunch at fine place called Alexander’s. We crossed the Golden Gate on the way home and, even with as much fun as we had, were glad to be back home in Cupertino.
