Eureka!

Eureka! We have been to, seen and conquered Eureka. Now for all of you out there that haven't a clue as to where Eureka is...here is a little geography lesson. Okay, so, do you see those two big dots on the map of California? The green dot is our general location in San Francisco. Do you see the big red dot that is pratically sitting on the California Oregon border? That is where we spent the weekend. We drove twelve hours so that our son Michael could play four hours in the Humboldt Bay soccer tournament. The exiting news is that his team took first place and won the tournament!


How did we pass the time near Humboldt bay, when we weren't jumping up and down & screaming ourselves hoarse on a damp soccer field outside of Eureka? Well, to begin with we ate breakfast at the Samoa House, an old fashioned, all you can eat, "we-don't-give-you-a-choice-what-we-bring-to-the-table-in-great-big-platters", kind of place. Then we walked around town and enjoyed the overcast views of the bay. We were amazed by the giant hammer outside the local hardware store, and as Eureka is basically a logging community,
we gazed upon stacks and stacks of lumber piled up all over the place. On the way home we drove through the Valley of the Giants, a stretch of old 101 that winds between the biggest red wood trees that I have ever seen. We stopped and looked in amazement upon the 1000 year old "Immortal Tree".

If you ever get the chance to drive 101 north up the coast of California, I highly recommend it. But, now that this has been my third trip north this summer, I am done for a while. The drive is breathtaking, the road twisting and turning and delightful....well, twisting, turning and delightful until you get to Willits and Ukia. At that point, the yucky bay area weekend traffic starts to rear its ugly head. We slowed down to a crawl outside of Hopland where there was some kind of hippy-solar engergy-organic-vegetable-fest occuring. Then we came to a screeching halt outside of Santa Rosa where we ditched the traffic for a stop over at the local In-and-Out burger. We crossed the Richmond bridge at dusk and were treated to a foggy view of San Francisco's lights, bay bridge and just the hint of the Golden Gate. We were home checking e-mail and doing laundry by 9pm. Another successful road trip. And now I can say that I've been to Eureka and back!