Take a holiday in Trinidad, they said! It’s GREAT, they said! [They weren’t talking, as it turned out, about the island nation in the southern West Indies...but stay tuned.]
Well, for a change ‘they’ were right. After suffering through over a year and a half of social deprivation, I and all my camp followers (wifie and ‘Her Serene Highness, Grand Duchess Nala of East Siberia’…our 14-year-old Husky bitch) were ready to jump ship, mutiny and/or do whatever it took to shake off the tedious Pandemic Blues!
And so, having a whole passel of wonderful memories from earlier (70s) times spent in the Eureka-Arcata-Samoa-Trinidad-redwoods area on North Coastal Californica (sic), when a couple of good friends suggested a four-day escape to Trinidad (CA) we literally leaped at the opportunity!
Most fortuously, I had just received a case of excellent ‘The Prisoner Wine Company’ vintage SALDO (one of the best damn Californica Zins I’ve ever tasted…and 14.5% by volume, as well!), so I packed up a couple of bottles while our friends brought the contents of a small Eye-talian delicatessen with them, we filled up our seabags, stashed our ditty sacks under the seat of my vehicle and made the 6.5 hour overland journey up to that fabulous and somewhat historic seaside locale on the North California Coast as fast as our SUVs would take us!
The pupster (Her Serene Highness, etc.) had precedence in the rear of our vehicle (the baggage was cleverly packed in so that it didn’t intrude on Her space), so She immediately made Herself at home back there, undoubtedly enjoying the nearly 360 degree panorama she commanded, as well as the side window access (rolled down just enough to get Her regal head and most of Her royal neck out into the slipstream) and immediately set to sampling all the delicious smells, scents and odors along the way.
Driving up from Suckatomato (the State Capital) in the midst of our annual summer wildfire season (now year-round, due to Climate Change), the air quality was absolutely terrible, the result of all that accumulation of wildfire smoke settling into the Sacramento Valley from the Caldor and other major fires that were then turning our already sere region into a state-shaped chunk of Manzanita charcoal! I think the AQI (Air Quality Index) was 197 (anything over 100 is ‘hazardous’) when we actually set off and it remained equally abysmal until we had left the Clear Lakes and Willits areas well behind us and were nearing Fortuna! Obviously, the pup was rather unhappy about having to remain on our recirculated filtered car A/C air until then, but as soon as the coastal breezes hit and the air cleared miraculously, She was in doggie Heaven again. Most of the time when the windows were open a crack, She was ‘co-piloting’, with Her muzzle thrust out on my left side, as I drove. It must present an amusing sight to passers-by!
[I can truthfully testify that, as ‘cute’ as it might seem, several hours of heavy breathing, panting and doggie drool on my left neck & shoulders was quite enough, thankew furry moosh!]
At any rate, the traffic was mercifully moderate most of the way, with only the usual ‘bottle-up’ occurring at Clear Lakes (Route 20). Clear Lakes (a large area in the coastal California foothills that includes several big lakes) is a bit of an enigma, I should mention here, since way back in the 20s/30s it was actually a very upscale, rather ‘toney’ resort area for the well-to-do social upper crust who had automobiles and who could escape the cities to bask in the sun & beach communities that were established there at lakeside. There were also fishing resorts for those who were piscatorially inclined, back then, as well as expensive sailing craft and beautiful mahogany-decked Chris-Craft speedboats for the privileged to while away the languid hours; and thus life continued that way until after the war (WW2).
In the 1950s, the quality of life in Clear Lakes progressively declined as scores of trailer-trash rednecks moved in, followed in the 60s by the stoners, the druggies and the flower-children. It wasn’t long before Clear Lake and its beautiful environs found itself on the Teflon-skidded runway to economic ruin and by the time the 80s rolled in, it was a place to avoid if at all possible.
A drive though there on Highway 20 took travelers through the scenic heart of all the blight. Every home had several trashed-out junkers in the yard and emaciated young-to-middle-aged white folks sat, strewn haphazardly around, here and there in semi-dazed groupings in the sun, obviously either heading into or coming down from Meth and God-knows-what-all other kinds of drug highs ‘local recreation’ providers offered.
Ironically, one of the small communities that one passes through enroute along that portion of Highway 20 through Clear Lakes was, back in the 30s and 40s, named ‘Lucerne’ and the town adopted a cutesy PR slogan that prominently stated (on roadside signs, courtesy of Lucerne's PR folks): “Beautiful Lucerne…the Switzerland of America!” Even then, it was a markedly euphemistic overstatement, but today...! [Well, perhaps back almost 100 years ago it bore some remote semblance…!]
Today, when one passes through all this urban blight and notes the faded old signs bearing that lavishly exaggerated old PR slogan, the impact is simultaneously cynically hilarious and cruelly ironic and its vintage melancholia saddens those who knew the Lake area back when it was at the height of its glory.
Too, the once-crystal clear lake waters are now choked by pesty green algae that seems ineradicable and the heat and smoke-filled air simply heightens the free-floating sense of urban doom that permeates the Clear Lakes environs at present. The water level of the Clear Lakes is also unusually low (as are most other California Lakes), as the severe drought, doubtless greatly exacerbated by Climate Change, continues to wreak ruination throughout the state.
After cruising through all this at the obligatory speed-limited crawl of about 40-50 mph, we finally got beyond formerly gorgeous Clear Lakes and headed on up through Willits and beyond, to Highway-101.
Finally, after a series of near misses with barreling logging trucks (hauling HUGE redwood logs back from the already sadly depleted California Coastal Redwood groves to grind into more chopsticks for China & Japan), slowdowns behind the plethora of grotesquely large, travel-trailer-pulling Ford F350 pickups, and sporadic encounters with both impatient speed-of-light sportscar drivers and their nemesis (the country farmer, out from his fields and taking vindictive pleasure pulling leisurely along at just below the posted speed limit), we finally reached the cool and balmy envelopment of the coastal redwood forests (Richardson Grove, the Humboldt Redwoods, Avenue of the Giants, etc.) and breezed thankfully onwards through Eureka, to Arcata, and finally to Trinidad, where we found our destination, the ‘Emerald Forest Cabins’ hostelry.
Emerald Forest Cabins is an interesting little anomaly, situated about half way up Patrick’s Point Road (it’s about 120 miles from Patrick’s Point State Park (which has recently suffered from 'diversity/inclusion historical revisionism...the NEW name is Sue-Meg State Park, a name that means something to a few dozens of Indigneous Yurock People, but less-than-zero to others) to the Oregon border) from the Trinidad Main Street cutoff from 101. It consists of several dense acres of pine and redwood forest, among which are scattered a number of RV sites, drive-in tent sites and (separated by a small fish-bearing creek, so the local mythology has it) a series of rustic cabins that rent out to anyone who cares to stay in them.
While the cabins’ exteriors are rustic and very woody in appearance, inside one is pleased to find very nice, sparkling clean knotty-pine wood paneling and a range of furnishing that typically includes small, modern kitchens, bathrooms and queen-sized (firm and very comfortable) beds! With such things as Keurig Coffee Makers, microwave units, reefers, sinks, beautiful slate floors with radiant heating, and all the holiday appurtenances, they are quite cozy indeed.
Since everything at Emerald Forest had been reserved weeks in advance, we had had to settle for what is marketing jibberish for a ‘Deluxe Double with Queen-sized Bed’ (at about $200/night). Exactly what that meant in real functional terms didn’t dawn on us until we arrived there to find that our ‘Deluxe Double’ was adjoined to the end of one of the cabins, duplex style. That’s not a bad thing, necessarily, but being connected at one end of the room meant that if the immediately con-joined neighbors were noisy, it could be a bit intrusive. They weren’t, fortunately, and we had several restful nights there before departing for home. Happily, that shared wall proved to have rather good acoustic insulation.
However, what we also didn’t know is that a large wedding party had just arrived and were housed in the adjacent cabins. Since all weddings are theoretically ‘joyful’ occasions, that wasn’t necessarily a problem and we were unbegrudgingly happy for everyone involved. The only fly-in-the-ointment therein was that most of the attendees drove what I call ‘Nasty Pick-em-ups’…mostly huge Ford-350 type “duallies”, and one of them that was jacked way-up off the ground (and painted in desert camouflage, it looked not unlike an M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank) was parked directly in front of our humble accommodation, taking up a good two spaces in the doing! This is not the sort of thing you want to find at your destination or have to hassle with after an exhausting 6+ hour drive up from the Suckatomato Valley!
But after a few polite inquiries as to whomever the ‘tank commander’ was, the problem got sorted out reasonably enough (even die-hard red-necks can be pleasant after getting well-lubricated at a wedding, so I am told) and the offending mobile artillery piece moved to a nearby ‘overflow parking’ area (for visiting temporary guests), doubtless crushing several innocent squirrels under its tires. Still, that was a small shock we weren’t prepared for in this little ‘Green Acres’ chunk of North Coast paradise! [Being somewhat accustomed to contemporary Californica ‘rural redneck’ attitudes, I almost anticipate that anyone driving one of these jacked-up monster pickup trucks is of that persuasion.]
Our traveling companions were themselves staying at another establishment named the ‘Trinidad Inn’, a bit further up Patrick’s Point Road from us that, as things turned out, was also quite nice (but not as redwood foresty in flavor as our far more rustic digs!). Whereas we had merely a single small room that was nearly filled up with a Queen-sized bed (it did have an adjoining small toilet/shower as well as a very small and tidy ‘kitchen’ of sorts…a Keurig coffee-maker, microwave, micro-fridge and a few cabinets above a sink), their rooms included a much bigger bedroom, a small kitchen and a bit more floor space, where we were able to join them for a shared dinner.
‘Emerald Forest Cabins’ is actually a neat concept. Think of it as a sort of more rustic, less commercialised ‘KOA’ campground, but stashed in the midst of a tall pine/redwood forest that is interspersed with some giant Sequoia Sempervirons (AKA: Coastal or Dawn Redwood) and bisected by a woodsy little, fish-bearing (allegedly, but I still suspect it as being a rogue septic tank run-off) creek. On one side of the rivulet are the small individual cabins (such as our room was joined to), while on the other side of it was a large woodsy area for RVs, travel trailers and tent camper sites. All in all, everything works pretty well together harmoniously and there were plenty of coastal ferns and greenery enough to convey the ‘forest’ theme quite well enough, throughout.
Although rustic appearing on the outside, inside the cabins are all quite nicely finished in the previously alluded to knotty-pine paneling, with beautiful slate tile floors that hide a very efficient radiant heating system. The bed was excellent, firm yet not so firm as to be uncomfortable, and even the pillows provided (usually terrible, just about anywhere else) were supportive and not too soft (as they frequently are). There were two of everything in the kitchen cabinets (two wineglasses, two bowls, two plates, two etc.), so it was obviously not provisioned for entertaining more than two people, but there was a small table, a bureau and a TV, and wi-fi was provided. In short, snug and cozy but perfect for two older people. Idyllic for a young couple with rampantly raging hormonal urges!
My only real gripe was that the drapes were pretty flimsy and not thick enough to keep out light from the outside doorway light that strangely had no apparent on/off switch. After coping with that perplexity for the first night, I finally unscrewed the light bulb just enough to shut the puppy off…thereby assuring a nice, quiet and dark night’s sleep for the next two!
Assuming the Emerald Forest guests were all considerate and not noisy, you couldn’t ask for a quieter, bucolic environment in which to chill-out and divest your system of all the noise, hassles and dynamic confusion of daily life in Suckatomato! It actually reminded me to a large extent, of typical up-scale summer camps in the Sierra Nevada Mountains I had frequented as a youth. I literally drank its atmosphere in, ingesting massive hunks of tranquility and serene peacefulness! After a year and a half of being a virtual prisoner at home during the pandemic, this quick hit of grab-it-on-the-run nature quickly made up for all the accumulations of frustrated urban-dweller life we had been choking on, down in the Suckatomato Valley!
As for Trinidad, the nearby small community (one of Californica’s oldest, by the way), among my observations are the following; make of them what you will (and ‘diversity is a blessing’ be damned!).
Trinidad was settled well over a century-and-a-half ago (1850) by predominantly white European and Mediterranean (Portuguese) immigrants who were fisherfolk and sheep ranchers by trade. Over the succeeding decades, starting mostly back in the 1960s, Trinidad filled up a bit with pot-smoking hippie-dippie types who were escaping from the San Francisco Bay Area; more recently (due to the inevitable ‘creeping gentrification’ process that has radically impacted our whole state) there have been more up-scale wealthy individuals moving to this area to level the mix a bit but not beneficially. These are the folks who can afford the several million-dollar, ocean-front edificial obscenities (real estate sites, a number of which have come up for sale when the original immigrant families passed away). I would guess more than a few of the new residents are therefore the usual up-scale professional types, such as doctors, lawyers, hedge-fund managers, Silicon Valley code writers, etc.
Still, there is an interesting demographic mix in contemporary Trinidad of all social classes…successful professionals, long-time ‘locals’, poor students (Humboldt State U.), down-on-their-catch fishermen and also a certain small number of ‘white trailer-trash’ types (not to mention the bums, vagabonds, vagrants, drug-addicts and psychotic basket cases, and miscellaneous freeloaders which are now euphemistically and benignly collectively defined as ‘homeless’ by the progressives among us).
There are NOT many (if any at all) ethnic minorities, I was quite happy to find (yeah, call me a racist if you must obsessively label everything, but for reasons too numerous to waste any time justifying here, diversity is usually NOT a happy thing, in my experience). I think I saw one single young black woman (probably a student from the college) and no other groups (no Chicanos, no Afghanis, no Indians, no Chinese, no et al). Predominantly just European stock-derived. In that single context, it was a bit easier to relax and not feel compelled to be so bloody ‘sensitive’ to the social & demographic diversity complaints (i.e. “That offends me!”) we are constantly burdened with back home, by liberal PC social Dudley-Do-rights.
The only bump in that otherwise smooth road was a bit of evident ‘localism’ that reared its ugly head every once in a while. One good example of this was when we were driving around one late afternoon, trying to find a restaurant for dinner and got off on a small rural road, not far from Trinidad (GPS wasn’t working properly). Pulling off the road to discuss this (we were getting lost), a rather threatening shout suddenly came from a fellow whose house we had pulled over in front of, to…and I quote…”Get the HELL out of my driveway!” (at least he didn’t lob the F-bomb at us!). This ugly warning was uttered from the doorstep of his house, in the yard of which were three small kids (his, obviously) on a swing-set.
No polite “Can I help you?”, no friendly “Need something, folks?” or even a stock “Howdy” greeting. Just a very loud, angry bellow of “Get the hell out…” Real friendly people, obviously! This sort of knee-jerk nastiness is characteristic, in my observations, of a rural redneck or trailer-trash mentality mentioned earlier that one finds in many rural areas today. Too bad. It’s probably also a manifestation of the NIMBY syndrome one finds in any local rural paradise today!
At any rate, we regrouped finally, got back on-track and searched for what would hopefully be a decent restaurant to eat at. The management at Emerald Forest had suggested that we might try a place called ‘The Eatery’, which they said was usually ‘pretty good’ (in the Garrison Keillor context), located on Trinidad’s Main Street. After finally finding it, we were a bit put-off to find that there were lots of cars clustered around it, but stopped anyway, by now getting rather famished, and inserted ourselves in the usual ‘socially-distanced’ line to find a table.
After a prolonged waiting period with no maî·tre d'hôtel showing up, at long last a painfully thin young woman with long blonde hair and several bilateral bicep tattoos came out to say that there was about a 40-minute wait to get in, since they were short staffed and full-up already. She suggested that if we were in a hurry, perhaps we should try another alternative and then mentioned a place called ‘The Lighthouse Grill’, which was back up Main Street near the Trinidad Main Street/Highway 101 juncture.
By this time, we were more than a bit peckish, I can assure you, and not too picky, as it became increasingly possible that we’d have to eat snacks for diner back at the Trinidad Inn. So, we parked and entered with a pragmatically hopeful anticipation not unlike that of spiritually thirsty Jewish pilgrims who have to settle for a Christian church to shelter in from the storm instead of a synagogue! (Spoiler: BIG MISTAKE!)
The staff (cook, 2 wait-persons and a register attendant) were all very young and a glimpse into the adjoining open kitchen revealed a thin young tattooed ‘dude’ with a bristly spike haircut and cut-off black T-shirt who was tossing stuff slap-dash on the stove’s griddle to cook it, I suppose! Not encouraging. It all seemed a bit grotty, if in a mild sort of way. This was starting to look WAY beyond ‘greasy spoonish’. Omen #1.
Glancing over the greasy menu posted on the wall over the counter, I tried to find something that should taste reasonably adequate (after all, it takes real culinary ineptitude to ruin a simple hamburger!) but finally decided that since this is a seacoast town, a fish dish would be far more appropriate (safer?) and thus ordered the fish & chips and a small bowl of chowder. The fare board also listed a local wine vintage named ‘Full Moon Blended Red’, so as an ever-adventurous imbiber, I asked for a glass of it, also. Meanwhile, as I was ordering, another customer walked up to the register and complained to the counter person that the glass of wine he had been given tasted like vinegar, asking for a replacement! Oopsie! Omen #2.
Since the outside dining area had empty tables but were still littered with used flatware and plates of partly-consumed food (another spoiler: not a good sign, either, but at least the flies were having fun), we opted for an indoor table that was adjacent to the restroom (definitely another unwise move) and sat down. At least there were nice big windows admitting lots of that delicious salty sea air that is such an intoxicating aspect of typical seacoast ambience (protecting patrons both from COVID-19 transmissions AND the smell of toilet aromas)!
After another protracted wait, the food started to arrive and since I was getting quite hungry by then, I immediately set about tucking into the ordered meal. But first a sip of the ‘Full Moon Blended Red’. Yuk! Vinegary indeed! Nevertheless, since even bad wine tastes better the more you drink of it, I pressed on regardless and thus fortified fearlessly approached the orangish fish & chips that now sat in front of me, sharing a chipped (and I hoped CLEAN) plate with wilted, over-cooked and suspiciously deep-brown colored fries and a small bowl of Boston Style clam chowder.
The batter the fish had been mercilessly smothered to death with had, upon breaking some of it open, a rather disturbing deep yellowish-red coloration to it…as if the fish it coated had been sunning in the UV on the beach several hours longer than was safe! A quick taste confirmed that it was as just bad as it looked. More Yuk!
Now, it’s hard to conceive how a beach-front town, ANY beach-front town, could possibly feature fish & chips that even a starving Norwegian Wharf Rat would turn its whiskery nose up at! Yet there was the evidence right there on my plate. The batter was worse than just bad…it was literally GHASTLY! After a few feeble attempts to get some of it down, I finally gave up on it (and the equally wretched fries) and turned to the chowder. Although it was served lukewarm, at least it was semi-palatable and I managed to get it all down (although I was vaguely suspicious of the several Unidentified Floating Blobs that emerged from it).
My companions, all of whom had the same execrable gustatory experience I had, agreed that this was one of the worst meals any of them could recollect in a good long time! I hasten to say that Martha Stewart would definitely NOT have commented “It’s a good thing” had she sampled this cuisine…
Finally, although not fully sated, we all decamped and exited for our vehicles, each of us doubtlessly ruminating on the absolute limits incompetent cooks could reach in preparing what should be at least half-way acceptable food and I am sure also speculating on how close the nearest lavatory was! The burgers that two of my companions had ordered were just as terrible…undercooked to the point of being almost raw and also tasting suspiciously of that same ‘off oil’ the fish had been fried in.
It didn’t take long for me to deduce that the source of all the not-quite-rancid-but-close taste of the food was attributable to obviously old and serially reused frying oil! Apparently, this little greasy spoon cookhouse kept reusing its frying oil over and over (to keep costs down?), which accounted both for the wretched taste and the yellow-red coloration of the fish batter!
Yow! I can truthfully say without any hesitation that that meal ranks right up there with some of the very worst I’ve ever been served…and I’ve eaten at a great many places scattered throughout the world! Even the Filipino-cooked Indian food in Saudi Arabia was FAR and away better than what ‘The Lighthouse Grill’ features! Thinking over all this, it occurs to me that perhaps they should have lit the Lighthouse’s cutesy fake beacon that sits atop the place as a warning to both lubbers and mariners alike that there be pysons and hazardous eats here! Steer clear if you value your life (or your digestion)! Maybe also a Type-K DiaPhone foghorn or two, as well…
I’m just happy that none of us got sick from ingesting that near-rancid oil, but nothing untoward involving repeat trips to the Ceramic Throne occurred later that evening, so I guess Neptune and his mermaid nymphs must have taken pity on us!
The next day, we headed for the Trinidad main drag (Main Street) to amble about a bit and see what the town offered in terms of sights and local attractions.
Trinidad is a pleasant little place, although there are often tourists clogging the streets. Among the businesses was a small, quite picturesque little cottage-like edifice that housed what the sign stated was the ‘Trinidad Art Gallery’, an artists’ cooperative in which a number of products of local artisans, craftsmen and painters are displayed (and purchasable, of course, at astronomic prices). The address of the cooperative is 490 Trinity Street and is easy to find, since it’s right there on Main Street (not far from the Full Moon Winery storefront and directly across the street from ‘The Eatery’ restaurant).
A bit more scenic voyeurism occupied another hour of two of our time, during which I swear I could palpably feel vibrations emitted by NIMBY property owners glancing at us like escaped felons in their back yard as we wandered, oogling the spectacular bay & harbor views. During that time, we stopped in at ‘Katy’s Smokehouse’ to buy some locally caught & smoked salmon and took that back with us to our lodging (it was excellent).
The next day it was lovely and sunny, and after a leisurely Euro deli-lunch, we decided to take a beautiful little woodsy, fern-filled trail that led from the back of our friends’ Trinidad Inn digs to the ocean. I took a number of pictures along it, so breathtakingly pastoral was it as it weaved through the brush pine & redwood forest, surrounded on both sides by copious amounts of poison oak scattered among the ferns. The Grand Duchess, whom we had brought along on the hike with us, was having an absolute ball, sniffing and squirting madly away with regally aristocratic doggie passion, as each foot of the trail revealed exciting scents, spoor, dead squirrels and other odors to savor.
Interestingly, the first 1000 yards of this forested trail took us by several curious sights. One of them, an old funked-out, hippie-dippy ’69 VW combi-camper looked as if it had been driven into its location over the ferns and expired just where it sat, surrounded by incredibly tall forest pines and redwoods. It had a typically ‘hip’ upper story added, built out of wood with a shingled roof and was plastered with the most amazing stickers, decals and bumper stickers. From the looks of all them, it was almost direct evidence of the fact that this old veteran VW had made a tour of every vintage 70s Grateful Dead, Eagles and ‘The Band’ event from San Francisco to Illinois (that’s where the plates were from). On the front of the bus was a placard that said (perfectly summing it all up!) ‘TWILIGHT ZONE’.
All of us were were really tickled by this amazingly picturesque vehicular anomaly, lost forever out there in the fern forest and serenely abandoned to nature’s whims! But it was a droll little time-warp thing that also seemed perfectly reasonable, somehow! I got a picture or two of us (wifie and I) standing in front of it that is charming.
There were a few other time-warpy relics back there along that trail, as well, such as an absolutely classic vintage 18 foot ‘ARGOSY’ travel trailer that also looked as if it had been parked there, equally forlorn and simply forgotten by time itself. I say ‘classic’ since it was at the time (50s/60s) a quite successful competitor to the equally classic AIRSTREAM trailers of that same period, featuring the same Aluminum aerodynamic shape and features of the latter. I could easily visualise myself living ‘off the grid’ in that beautiful old relic, since it was still pretty bombproof and a quick glimpse inside (there was no one living in it) revealed that the interior was as fresh as the day it rolled off the assembly line! Another unfulfilled fantasy dream…just like another one I’ve always had of living on a houseboat…in my earlier life!
Pushing onwards, we continued to be enchanted by the surroundings of this spectacular little unassuming trail as it meandered along, until it joined a gravel accessway called ‘Stagecoach Road’ that enabled some homeowners to get to their rather nice little, hidden-away properties that were tucked in between Trinidad and the coast. A goodly number of these places were really quite spectacularly sited and obviously had been constructed by people of more than modest wealth. A few were quite regal.
Since Randy, my good friend (a retired US Navy Lt. Commander) has a gimpy knee (too many missions over Vietnam), we didn’t press on all the way to the ocean but soon turned around and backtracked up the trail to their hostelry, again enjoying all the perfect stillness and solitude surrounding that trail. (Still & solitary except for several large and noisy Alsatian attack dogs that prowled the fenced perimeter of one these palaces!).
Upon returning and after a bit of further reconnoitering, we got in our vehicles and headed back into Trinidad, where we returned to Katy’s Smokehouse, situated not far from the harbor & Trinidad Pier. Here in addition to freshly smoked (and delicious) salmon, they retailed a range of other deli consumables, so we purchased more several packets of the smoked salmon (quite pricey), creme cheese with chives, cans of smoked (local) oysters, French bread, imported Norwegian crackers and a few other delectable goodies, then headed back to Randy’s accommodations where an outdoor picnic area under the redwoods afforded us another perfect spot for a leisurely European-style lunch. Since I had brought along several bottles of the previously mentioned, smashing California Zinfandel (made by Rutherford’s ‘The Prisoner Wine Company’), we also cracked open one of them and just mellowed out/chilled/whatever you wish to call it, over all the great stuff and the fantastic wine! Heaven! Pure Heaven!
Breakfast both succeeding mornings took place in Randy & Kathy’s place and wifie’s excellent Chinese (Shanghai) Style ‘breakfast casserole’ (potatoes topped with ham and smoked sausage) proved both delicious and fulfilling, accompanied by some equally excellent strong coffee (Rambo’s Favorite).
After that, it was suggested that we traipse down to Eureka, since Kathy & Randy had mentioned they wanted to visit a well-known tourist attraction at Eureka's Sequoia Park Zoo known as the ‘Redwood Skywalk’. The park/zoo itself is actually rather appealing and the ‘Redwood Skywalk’ consists of a cleverly conceived and executed suspended walkway that runs from redwood tree to redwood tree at a height of about 100 feet off the ground. Aside from offering some interesting views, there are many placarded stations up there at each tree’s juncture, offering information and descriptions of various natural features. As might be predicted, it was full of enthusiastic kids just enjoying the hell out of the novelty of being so far above the forest floor. An adjacent park complex next to the zoo/redwood skyway was also a kids’ delight, with a variety of swings, small rides, picnic tables and other tourist accommodations for families. Having been originally constructed about 10-15 years ago, it’s all quite fresh and well maintained. Unfortunately for wifie and I, it was too perfect an example of combining a Disneyland entertainment venue with the natural splendor of nature's own Coastal Redwoods, so we let our companions edge their way into the park’s ticket line and agreed to rendezvous with them a short while later.
Since wifie and I had Her Serene Highness along with us, we stayed out of the zoo/redwood skyway portion of the park and simply wandered around the surrounding area, let HSH sniff, squirt and do all the things a dog of her regal nature is wont to do. She loved every bit of it, of course! And so did we, as the weather was spectacular, fresh, sunny and with a light sea breeze to make it all perfect! Besides, this ‘holiday’ included a great deal of pleasurable walking…a welcome break from the enforced ‘homebody’ isolation we were coming from.
After about an hour, we were rejoined by our friends and spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the nearby Samoa Spit area (a large sandy spit that contains a large part of the Humboldt Bay), stopping at the seawall/jetty beach near the Samoa Coast Guard Station to gawk at the huge sea swells and breaking waves that characterise that open ocean-fronted part of Humboldt/Arcata Bay. HRH thought the sand was delightful and several of the pictures I took shows her smiling her enthusiastic appreciation of it all! Since the sea was restless that day, so-called ‘sneaker waves’ may sudden rise up from the Bay without warning and sweep you away, so we stayed largely off the huge concrete rip-rap breakwater. No sense at all in being the day's breaking news the local TV media station's 5 O’Clock Report, like so many yokals do, eh?
After three nights, our holiday was over all too soon, sadly, so the final morning after loading up the vehicles, we once more headed back the same route we had taken to get there (Highway 101 to Highway 20, then finishing up on I-5 South). The air again began to turn ugly even before we had reached Willits, with visibility so bad it almost resembled fog (but with an even higher AQI of about 200!). And finally, after another 6+ hour ‘Bataan Death Drive’ under our seatbelts, we reached home safely and more weeks of continuing pandemic proscriptions ensued.
The first day or two back, however, were invigorating and very up-beat, given the collective energy recharge we had received at Trinidad (albeit briefly) and it was a much-needed reminder of exactly how seriously the pandemic has impacted normal life (and continues to do so, with the still largely unknown effects of the emerging and highly contagious mutant ‘Omicron-1’ viral strains that are now causing what appears to be a whole new ‘5th Wave’ of COVID-19 infections!) in America.
In closing, here, you’ll have to pardon me for eschewing the bounds of brevity and carrying on at such great length about our little adventure, but hey…that’s what I do (express myself exponentially, instead of as sparely and briefly as possible; if you don’t already know that, well...shame on you!). [For the record, my creative writing profs back in college were unanimous in all expressing the same chief criticism of my writing, which is coincidentally the number one rule for any and all successful writing exercises: “Failure to keep things brief, concise and straight-forward, and as simply expressed as possible.” No way, Josette!]
But things could be worse (in our age of inarticulate and sometimes even incoherent social media posts). I just happen to be one of a dying breed who still believe in communicating at expeditious length and sharing things in needlessly great detail! Consider yourselves fortunate in that regard, eh! It’s a lost art, so I am told.
Wifie and I, as well as Her Serene Highness, Grand Duchess Nala, wish you all a continued safe passage through the shoals and rock-strewn shallows of the COVID-19 pandemic!
Remember that it ain’t all over ‘till the fat lady sings…and she hasn’t even been seen anywhere near the opera house, yet!
PS: I’d wish you all a ‘Happy’ and enjoyable Thanksgiving, but unfortunately that it AIN’T, with all the ‘Critical Race Theorists’ running amok throughout our sorely polarised society at the moment. Besieged as we are on all fronts (by dual, concurrent pandemics of COVID-19 and mass stupidity), there’s precious little to get happy about (unless you’re one of those irritatingly idealistic religious types who think that somehow there’s a Greater Divine Purpose behind all this racially divisive horse-exhaust we are presently having lobbed at us by puerile, grossly deluded liberal/anarchistic socialist progressives (AKA: intellectual ‘regressives’).
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NOTE: Some names in this narrative have been changed to protect the REALLY guilty, but most of the names of the lessor affenders that appear here are correctly rendered.
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