My Home

I haven’t blogged in awhile, and the two people who read my blog deserve an explanation. My father passed away unexpectedly. It was on January 7th, which was also the first day of my semester at my university. I had to go home, and I’ve just been deterred from writing since then. My semester is also heavy, at 19 units. It will be over soon, and I do have some places I’m going to explore and write about. So I’m sorry for the absence.

Also, the platform I use to blog is incredibly frustrating to move pictures around, so I’ve found a better way to upload and move photos, however it will look a bit different on the blog. Just a forewarning.

The place I grew up is Humboldt County, CA. It’s known for the beautiful mountains, the dark Pacific Ocean, and its redwood trees. It is truly one of the most beautiful places on Earth. However, it suffers from a small town syndrome. The same generationals have lived there since it was founded and raised their kids there who don’t move away or see that there’s more to the world. The furthest they’ll go is to Oregon or go to Chico State for college then come back. I moved there when I was three, and even though I was considered a local, there was definitely a divide between the generational families and people like me. It’s all about who you know in Humboldt, and how long your family has been there. For example, a girl and myself both had the same set of grades, and applied for the same scholarships our senior year of high school. You can guess who got every scholarship, because her family knew the people giving them out. There’s also a huge drug issue. Most people, until marijuana was legalized in California, illegally grew weed and made their money that way. There’s many homeless people addicted to hard drugs as well, and they cause a lot of crime. There’s an immense amount of crime for such a small area. So although the geography is breathtaking, there’s a reason my husband and I got out. And there’s a reason we could never live there again. The people there are stuck, never wanting to move forward.

There’s also a university there that all the kids from down south, like the Bay Area or even further like LA, go to. It gets them away from their parents, but they still are getting in-state tuition. The city kids go up and try to change things to match their city lifestyle, and they cause a lot of problems. Then they clash with the generationals who are stuck in time. Both are toxic. I know it may seem like I’m ranting about the area, but when you see the following photos you’ll fall in love. I just want to be completely honest about how the area actually is. It’s my home, and I love it, but I could never live there again.  I had to go back to help bury my father, so I’ll show you my home.

                  

This first photo was actually taken a year prior, when I came back to have my wedding ceremony with my husband. I feel it really shows the area though. I took it in Trinidad when I was taking my mom’s dogs on a walk on the Trinidad Head Trail with my aunt and mom. We were up walking around one of the small mountains, but underneath is Trinidad State Beach that you can go to and walk around. It’s pretty cold in Humboldt year round, so there’s not much swimming, but there is a couple of neat places to go tide-pooling.  People do surf too, but they have to wear wet suits. 

The  photo above me is the Arcata bottoms. This is mainly farmland, there are a lot of cows down here. Unfortunately, this is also the place that floods the easiest in the area. There’s a nice pumpkin patch I used to enjoy going to down here too though.

A photo taken from the car on the way to Trinidad. I know, there’s a multitude of spots on the window, but I wanted to show you how thick the forests are up there. They just keep inclining up the mountains. Plus this shows our usual, grey skies.

Here’s a better photo of the continuous, plentiful forest. Since living on the East Coast, I haven’t seen much forest so condensed you can’t see through the trees. That’s something I miss from the Pacific Northwest.

These are from Dry Lagoon. I went with my mom, sister, brother-in-law, and husband to pick agates for my dad’s headstone. His friend is making him one out of redwood. The Pacific Ocean, at least in the northwest, is so much darker than the Atlantic, and the sand is too. It always keeps me in awe seeing it. I prefer the darker colors better. My best friend also came with her mom and some of their friends. They met us there, and they’re expert agate hunters, so it was nice having them around. 

I took this in the car on our way back from Dry Lagoon. It’s in between Orick and Trinidad on highway 101. It was an unusual sunny day that day. My dad was probably giving us some ideal weather for agate hunting. I prefer the cold, grey weather though. 

A new mural in downtown Eureka. It looks amazing to me, but a lot of the locals were extremely angry it was being put up. They said the mural should be of the redwoods we have, and that this makes us look too much like a city (these generationals also start a riot when a corporate store is being put in anywhere in Humboldt – “we should only have local stores and restaurants,” they wail and cry. Their biggest fear is turning into a city. You should have heard them when one of the casinos bought digital billboards to advertise). They may not like it, but I find it perfect. If downtown Eureka wasn’t infested with crime and homeless, it would have the charm this mural paints it out to have.

These are two of my favorite photos I took of the mountains and forests up there. My mom took my husband and I to a restaurant called Peppers in Fortuna. Mountains like this were what I grew up seeing. I didn’t even realize others don’t get this until I moved to the East Coast. Saratoga Springs, NY did have some mountains and forest, but no ocean. Charleston, SC and Virginia Beach, VA have the Atlantic, but no mountains or thick forest. I love the mysterious mist that rises out of the darkened scene. The second photo shows our thick fog that takes over the area in a moment’s notice.

This is a little beach right under the Seascape restaurant in Trinidad (side note, the same best friend who met me for agate hunting, works at seascape, so this is her every day view). To the left, under the Trinidad Pier, is a great place to go tide-pooling if it’s low tide. To the right is the mountain where the Trinidad Head Trail is. There’s also a small cave to the right on the mountain. You can see it if you climb up the rocks under the pier or if you’re on the pier. I’ve always wanted to explore the cave, but I would either have to climb to it or swim to it. We also found an immense amount of sea glass on this beach.

 A small fort some kids, or maybe adults, made on the same beach. I have a funny story about this beach. Once, when I was a child, I was hopping on logs on the beach. I was with my dad, mom, sister, and her friend. Suddenly, her friend screams bloody murder for me to stop. So I did. I was about to jump on a sleeping elephant seal that looked like a log. I still think about that potentially dangerous situation a lot.

                                          Here’s the view from under the pier. Many of the fisherman are out. I believe it was crabbing season when I came out. Actually, it was, because every New Year’s Day they have the Blessing of the Fleet in Trinidad. The local, Yurok tribe will get an elder to say a prayer in their language for the crab fishermen to have a good, safe season. They say since they’ve started doing that, they haven’t lost a fisherman out at sea. They’ve been doing it for such a long time though, it might just be a rumor. I’ve gone to the Blessing of the Fleet almost every year since my dad was like a brother to the elder who would say the prayer. He also came to my dad’s memorial, and I got to hug him and his daughter.

The fisherman like to be left alone by tourist. There’s a spot on the pier where regular people can’t walk past and it’s only for the fisherman. As I got older I started noticing more and more of my classmates working for their parents on their boats, so it was less intimidating to walk along the pier since I knew many of them. My old neighbor was also a crab fisherman out here, and he would bring us free crab if he had a surplus. That’s something I definitely took for granted. 

When I was walking down here, under the pier, I also found so many critters. Don’t worry, I didn’t pry a starfish off of it’s rock, but it was refreshing to be able to go tide-pooling again. I even found an empty sea urchin shell. I took that, and many other shells home. One more funny story is I took home all of these shells – through the airport, in my luggage for several days. When I finally went to clean the sand off of them in a bowl, a tiny critter started swimming around. He was a little trooper and I can’t believe it lasted that long without water, on a flight across the country, stuck in my luggage. I took the tiny guy, about the size of a bug, out to the beach close to my house, so he made it all the way to the Atlantic. What an adventurer - or it’s a horror story like Finding Nemo and I abducted it from its family and friends.

This is the last photo on the tour. There’s still so much I could show you, but I didn’t have enough time to explore and could only take photos from the few places I went to. This is at Dry Lagoon as well, but I thought it would be a good closing photo since it represents the area well. My husband and I climbed to a high rock and took this. The waves were splashing underneath us, and we got to look out at the limitless, Pacific Ocean one last time. 

I’ve lived in a lot of places up and down the East Coast, but none of it compares to my home. If there was no crime, generationals, or the university, I would go back and live in Humboldt County. It was nice to go back, even under such heavy circumstances. My dad was buried in the Trinidad cemetery. Normally it’s only for people who lived in Trinidad, but my dad was a State Park Ranger who would regularly go through Trinidad and knew the locals. When the mayor found out he had passed away, he immediately said we were welcome to bury him there. My mom picked a spot right under a redwood tree. She had his head facing the ocean, and his feet facing the forest. So it was like his feet were walking into the redwoods, while his head laid to rest close to the Pacific Ocean. That’s what he would have wanted. He loved the area so much. 

I’ll come back to Humboldt, I always do. My husband and I already decided we want to settle down in the Pacific Northwest after he’s out of the military. It’s just an area we hold close to our hearts, and we’ll be close enough to drive down to Humboldt to see our families. We miss the tall mountains, dense forest, constant grey and rainy weather, the native tribes, the exploration of hiking and backpacking that everyone in Washington, Oregon, and Northern California love.

It’s a place like no other, and it’s nostalgic to me. I’ve driven through the Arizona desert, it truly has the most gorgeous sunsets that turn the sky every color ranging from orange to purple. I’ve seen the never-ending, great plains and farmlands of the Midwest. I’ve experienced the hospitality of the South, along with their alligator swamps and mossy, ancient, oak trees. I’ve gotten to know the Northeast from their mountains and forest, to their bustling cities, old money, classy fashion, and great history. All of these places are stunning in their own, unique ways. There’s so much to the U.S., every area is different. But my soul longs to be back in the Pacific Northwest, and in only a few short years it will be. I’ll be forever grateful I got out and experienced this beautiful country though. And I’m incredibly thankful that by doing so, I’ve found assurance in where I need to be as my forever home. The perspective I’ve been given from getting out and seeing more is precious, but I’ll be back home soon.