Today Monday, Tomorrow the Redwoods

Monday is my day for house cleaning in the morning, with usually not a lot happening in the afternoon. Today’s afternoon excitement is feeling the weather warm up. High of 100 today, possibly 106 tomorrow. Well, we really haven’t had any terribly hot weather yet this summer. All good things must come to an end. Maybe I’ll make gazpacho tomorrow. Nothing is as good in hot weather.

Partially in reaction to the heat, Kathleen and I decided we’ll go to Arcata in Humbolt County for a long weekend in mid-August. That’s the far northern California coast, near Redwoods National Forest. Truly a cool, misty and beautiful place. The woods look like “Jurassic Park”, which was filmed there. We made the hotel reservation today. I prefer hotel rather than camping since it rains all the time there. Ah, just the thought of rain feels good right now. We plan to drive up Thursday afternoon and evening, spend Friday and Saturday in the woods, and drive home Sunday. The main points I am interested in, Patrick’s Point and Prairie Creek State Parks are about 50 miles north of Arcata. Several years ago, I camped at Patrick’s point with a friend. In its cold and primitive way, these woods are perhaps the most beautiful I have seen. Beautiful misty beaches, coastal bluffs, fern gulleys, and redwood forests. I promise I’ll actually take pictures and get them on the blog. It always takes a little longer for me, since I may be the world’s last blogger to use a camera with actual film. Well, that’s one of the costs I pay for my casual relationship to the world of work.

Here's a photo from my last visit to Prairie Creek. I was overfilled to bursting with what John Muir called "natural beauty bread".




An interesting aside about the twin cities of Eureka and Arcata; Formerly lumber towns, the major source of income for these towns and surrounding regions appears to be large scale marijuana farming. Hiking guides warn us to keep on the trail, since wandering onto someone’s “farm” on State or Federal land can prove fatal. The other big deal in Arcata is California State University Humboldt. This school is the world capital of white guys in dreadlocks who call each other “duuuuude”. The student body is from all over the state, representing a higher than average economic background and desire to get to what’s real, like y’know. None of that linear crud for these deep thinking young Americans. Raving, as well as Poi and other flaming object twirling is big up there.

The last time I visited I spent some delightful time with my friend’s brother and his girlfriend. His brother works as a police officer in Arcata, and is involved in running a winery. The girlfriend is a former forest ranger, and went along for some of our hikes. Best of all, when the cold rain fell, we quickly packed up camp and moved to their house. We spent the rest of the weekend eating good food, tasting fine wine, and hearing great stories from the world of law enforcement rather than shivering by the campsite. Hopefully we will be able to see these two while in town.



My work life (or nearly complete lack thereof) continues to provide a source of angst for me. Maybe that’s not too bad, given my proneness to inaction in this area, and I recall my work life gave me a lot of angst when I was fully employed as well. If I never actually do anything about it, what harm can it possibly cause? Put that in your cigar and smoke it, Sigmund.

On the home front, our neighbors from New Orleans invited us for a shrimp boil at the end of this month. Regional food has invaded our once peaceful neighborhood. Now it is inevitable, we’ll have to have everybody over for brats late summer or early fall. NFL games are on the tube so early here (even the Sunday late game ends at about 3:00) so they will be spared the tribal Packers’ game. I noticed local grocery stores have started carrying Johnsonville brats. That, and sourdough hard rolls should form the perfect bridge between California and Wisconsin cuisine. My apologies to Alice Waters. Brats make me sad because you can’t drink beer after brats have been boiled in it. I actually haven’t tried this, but I believe it’s true. At least the onions are delicious. I haven’t thought about side dishes, whether to go with traditional greasy potato salad, or do something lighter like gazpacho, which the neighbor ladies love. I am definitely not doing cream puffs for desert.

Quick political note: It appears Carl Rove outed that CIA operative, thus spake Rove’s attorney yesterday. Chalk up another one for America’s leading crime family. I may not have lived my life perfectly, but, goshdarnit, I never exposed a CIA spy.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.