Day 6 - Arcata, CA

[Thursday, Arcata] The Comfort Inn in Arcata offers a nice complimentary breakfast. Cereal, fruit, malted waffles, bagels, orange juice, coffee, pastries, etc. etc. The waffles you cook yourself and they are very fluffy and tasty. The management puts out the batter in Styrofoam(tm) cups in just the right amount so you don't overflow onto the counter. Linda had Raw Bits Twang Twang.

Although gold prompted Arcata's settlement, it was the area's timber resources which sustained its development. Situated on the hillside overlooking Arcata, Humboldt State University (founded in 1913) is one of the oldest colleges in the California State University system. Arcata is home to the first community owned forest in the United States. They also established the first rural recycling center. And, Arcata is home to the oldest continuously operating movie theater in the US and hosts the country's oldest collegiate summer baseball team (the Humboldt Crabs).

Somewhere around 10:03a.m. we left our digs to go downtown. First project for the day was to take Linda to place a letterbox at, or near, the Arcata Eye, a moderately objectionable weekly newspaper (their motto). Our son discovered it when he was attending Humboldt State and, knowing how kinky his mom is, gave Linda a subscription. One of the more humorous parts of the paper is the local police report (view them online by clicking here.). Being a weekly paper, Linda found their offices closed. Thursday must be a slow news day. Now, Arcata is one of the few towns in America that still has a town square. Arcata's town square is a very nice park. On the corner of the square across the street from the Jacoby building (home to the Arcata Eye) is a memorial plaque about the Jacoby Building (built in the 1850s during the Gold Rush). In the photos for today you will see the plaque and a fancy elevator door if they make the cut. I was able to find a great place to stash the letterbox (whose theme is The Arcata Eye). The Plaza has a large statue of William McKinley which dates back to 1906.

After that, we found the Jiggly Bean Coffee Shop across the street from another corner of the town square. John got his Mocha fix for the day and Linda had a Tea N Tea.

Linda had come across a brochure about Arcata which listed a couple of dozen buildings of architectural significance (to someone). All were pretty old as most were originally designed and built in the 1800s. Some had been resotred. And some of the stories about the owners and occupants were pretty interesting. One building was even a sanitarium. Linda wanted to leave John there. There are several pictures of some of the beautiful, but old, structures in today's gallery.

Jay had tipped us off to a cafe in Arcata (and Eureka) called Los Bagels. Yes, bagels are their specialty. He had made recommendations. Linda had a vegetarian bagel with hummus on a jalapeno bagel. John had an onion bagel with cream cheese, salmon and capers. Both were delicious. Jay had also asked us to pick up some special sauce from there.... Larrupin' Mustard Dill sauce. He'll be happy to know that two jars of said sauce will be in Morgan Hill awaiting his next visit. Unless, of course, we run out of the jar we bought for ourselves. Then all bets are off!

We went back to the comfort of our Comfort Inn and rested a couple of hours before heading for Trinidad Beach, about 11 miles north of Arcata at the little town of Trinidad. We heard that the ocean view there was very nice for photographers. We were also considering the possibility of dinner in Trinidad.

Arriving in Trinidad about 5:00p.m. we found lots of fog. It actually made for some interesting shots at the coast, even before sunset. There was a bright horizontal band of light between the ocean and the fog (low clouds). We drove around and decided that the beach close to the wharf (and a seafood restaurant) was very picturesque for our needs. Since we had loads of time before sunset, we thought we'd check out the menu at the seafood restaurant. John had sticker shock. Average price for a seafood entre was about $25.00. We both agreed that we could go back to our motel after shooting the sunset and make sandwiches. We'd save the $60-$70 (including drinks and tip) to spend on an extra day on our next road trip!

Photographing at that beach was nice, though it was a bit windy and cold. A couple of surfers showed up and John took some shots of them, though they didn't get up on, or stay up on, their boards for very long. Can you say splash? Just about the time the sun was going down, John was clicking away with HDR shots. And, along came what must have been the sun worshippers. One was standing on the beach (but not in John's line of fire, so to speak) waving her palm frond and chanting her mantra. Another strolled out to the edge of the water (in John's line of fire). He tried a couple of shots with her in it, and then repositioned the camera to exclude her. He hasn't processed those pictures yet, so we don't know how they will be. When they are done, we'll put them in a photo gallery if they are worthy.

Once the sun had gone down, it was back to the Comfort Inn and our sandwich dinner. Tomorrow will be a rather "ho hum" day (unless we drive off a cliff) getting to Medford, OR where we will do laundry and have dinner at the Black Bear restaurant (yep, they have one here!!).

That's all for now. Lights out!

Link to Day 6 Photo Gallery The gallery will open in its own window. When finished viewing, close that window to return here.