The Ride to Arcata

On April 2, 2023, I wrote that the previous Friday morning I knew my host was going to be lazy so at 10:30 I let him know that I would be going to the local coffee shop and headed out to wander the neighborhoods. Unfortunately, the bus was no help but I ended up at the coffee shop by 11. I called the town’s only mechanic about the bike I had left with him - the bike I had borrowed from my brother for the weekend. He said come by at 1 o’clock.

My host called me around then and we agreed to have bloody marys at the restaurant on the harbor. When we got there, the hostess set us up while we were waiting in line. There was some event where everyone had their kids with them. I had some delicious fish and chips.

From there we went to find the bike at the shop and we agreed to meet at the smaller brewery in town. When the mechanic was finished, I found the bike worked great – new grips and clean shifting. It skipped a little but I didn’t complain. I stopped at Home Depot for a bungee.

My host and I had a beer at the brewery and then we got on the bikes and rode to Old Mill Road. I was a little concerned about having to deal with cars but Old Mill is generally empty. We passed the visitors center and took a hard right to a spot where we saw a raptor scare a bunny right into the spokes of our bikes parked nearby at a picnic table.

We climbed a tree and rode the edge of the lake marshes to a small hill at Tolowa Dunes and shared a beer. Then we rode to the outlet for Lake Earle and found duck skulls. We walked on the dead reeds and mud before riding to the trail head and a shed near the “long trail to the beach.”

We rode back to Old Mill and through rain past Washington to Pacific where we made a stop at the liquor store because he was expecting his girlfriend to visit. When we got to the house, we were only a little wet from the rain. We made coffee and I was alone for a while.

When the girlfriend showed up, we chatted for a bit before going to the only good Thai place in town. I ended up getting too much spice in my curry. We discussed novel ways to pour beer, college and people we knew. When we got back to the house, we had a cocktail and played scrabble.

The next morning I woke up with enough time to ride the bike to the coffee shop in town. The bike worked perfectly. There I met my older brother who had been hosting my twin seven year old boys in Oregon for their spring break. I was planning on taking them back home to the city on the local buses.

I had ordered coffee in time to beat the line. It was “opening day.” My brother appeared a bit later with my boys and put his bike in his car. My host showed up then and the five of us walked to the bus stop and we all said bye. The trip had been nothing but fun.

The ride to Arcata was really nice. In Del Norte Redwoods, I told the boys to look for big trees. They were impressed with the cliffs. After a brief stop in Klamath Glenn, we crossed the Klamath River Bridge which has Golden Bears on either end. I, sadly, only got half a picture of them. As we passed through the center or the Redwood National Park complex we saw none of the elk which typically winter there. The boys were able to remember the name of one of the lagoons. Unfortunately, one of them wanted to quit traveling as we were passing through Trinidad. He called it Boring Town.

When we got to Arcata hotel, we walked around the plaza, bought some pastries, and then walked to Northtown for some hot cocoa. We peeked in on the ceramics lab at Humboldt Polytechnic University - my alma mater - and walked around the library. There was an augmented reality map, and a giant chessboard – I won a game against the boys. We looked at the topographic relief maps. Finally, we climbed to Founder's Hall before walking back to the hotel for a nap.

Later we went to the Italian restaurant on the square for pizza and went to a fun ice cream place that had some fun mini-carnival rides - like a carousel horse. There were a bunch of fun things for the kids.

Back at the hotel I waited for the boys to sleep and then went downstairs for a beer and to view the crowds milling around the old college town’s square. Tt was way more crowded there than I had ever seen – or remembered.

When the three of us got up at 7:30 the boys forced me out of bed and we packed to go. We went to a nice coffee shop I remembered from the old days and then headed out to catch our Amtrak thruway bus to Petaluma. I had the boys sit in the front seat as we headed through Fortuna and I pointed out points of interest until we got to Mendocino. They sat in the front alone most of the ride on the Eel River.

In Willits I had to move to another seat because we picked up a wheelchair and at Ukiah we stopped for a quick lunch break. I took the boys for ice cream again. The highlight of the ride to Petaluma was getting pictures of Frog Woman Rock (aka bitsin maca) not far from Hopland.

The next leg of the trip to SF was on the 101 Golden Gate Transit bus. I noted that there was a washed out path in Olompali. When we got to the Golden Gate bridge I noted that the boys were good at transferring to a Muni 49 bus and the walk to the apartment involved a stop at the corner store and we finished the day with a Ramen dinner, TV and ice cream before bed.

This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.