I left off with Mendocino. From there, most of our time was spent looking at redwoods and other nature, and hanging out at a very comfortable airbnb home in Crescent City
There are several Redwood State and National Parks between Mendocino and Crescent City. We spent one day driving the Avenue of the Giants in Humboldt Redwoods and walking among the giants there. There are even three redwoods I know of in NW California which you can drive through. I know. Tacky tourist stuff. But Myung’s never seen anything like trees of this size. For those who don’t know, this tree is alive and well. They don’t live to be 3000 years old for nothing.
I don’t know how much you can say about walks in the forest. I’ll just post some of the better pictures. A couple are from Humboldt and the others are from the Jedediah Smith redwoods near Crescent City.
We really, and I mean really, don’t do hard traveling anymore. In the old days, this trip would have been luxurious and super easy. Now, we just plunk down when we want. Crescent City and the environs, and our airbnb place and the hosts were so nice, we just asked them if we could stay several extra days. No one else had booked with them, so we just stayed there till four days before returning to Cuenca.
For Myung, our airbnb place was the best ever. The hosts were Chinese, only three years in the States. I must say I liked them a lot but could talk much because of their limited English and my nonexistent Chinese. Myung, however, felt right at home. They made us feel at home, too. Plus, we had two big rooms to sleep and hang out in, when we weren’t socializing in the kitchen or hanging out in the huge living room and enjoying the view of their lovely 16 acre property. It really was sweet. Here we are, having dinner together.
That picture was actually taken by their 8 year old boy. Pretty good, eh?
I had never spent any time to speak of in Crescent City. It’s still little and quiet. The supermax prison a few miles north of the city (and about a half mile from our airbnb place) has no effect on the city’s aesthetics. There’s nothing very photo worthy right in town. There’s a city beach, an old lighthouse and a rocky shoreline directly on the west side of town.
I’ve got a few other pictures worth looking at. North of those rocks in the last picture and west of where we stayed is an area called Tolowa Dunes State Park. There aren’t any dunes, really, but sandy grasslands, some hilly areas and a driftwood strewn beach. It’s not exactly remote, but you can pretty much have the place to yourselves.
Then it was time to get back. Myung wanted to go to a Chinese medical clinic in Oakland for a couple of health issues. That place closes at 5 on Saturdays, so we bolted all the way down from Crescent City on that last Saturday. Sunday-Wednesday was shopping and saying goodbye. Wednesday night we took the red-eye to Quito. Thursday we spent an interminable day doing nothing in the wifi-less Quito airport, then took a 7 PM flight to Cuenca. Here we are.
I’ll blog later about all the changes the owners made around here while we were gone. It’s like a new place.
So, that’s about it for now. It might be a while before I get up to the States again, or do anything real exciting. We’re already practically back to our normal life. Until later, be well, all of you.
Banana slug. They can grow up to about a foot long.