This summertime stay in Humboldt has really made me feel like I am still a "local" with all of the great events and excursions I have been able to take part in. Last month I didn't plan on arriving back from Japan until the 30th, but I changed my flight ($200 fee) to allow me to leave a few weeks earlier so I would be able to work at a few concerts. It turned out that the concerts ended up not offering enough money for our film crew and I still have yet to be paid to pick up a camera this year! However, I recently heard that I will be working at Reggae Rising, so thank goodness for that!
Cousins descending from my father's side of the family
Humboldt's rural community of Salmon Creek has been the setting for many fun things I have done this summer. The family reunion in June at my aunt and uncle's place was a great event, and nearly all of my father's side of the family was able to attend. The following day a bunch of us were able to meet up again to go to an incredible swimming hole that for my whole life I had only heard rumors of.
Salmon Creek's "Three Falls"
Three Falls is a magical swimming hole in Salmon Creek that is reached by passing through private property. This required all of us wanting to go to meet up with my cousins around half way to the trail-head, leave our car, and hop in the back of their truck since we only had permission from the land owners to take one vehicle.
We rendezvoused at the beautiful Salmon Creek Community School
Loaded up in the truck...
Then hiked through fields
...And through poison-oak-filled gullies
And here was our reward
The picture above is the first thing I saw as I approached Three Falls. In order to get up to the second pool, one must scale those steep rocks to the left of the waterfall. This is not a very easy task, and I have heard rumors of people being frightened to tears climbing these rocks.
Dangerous terrain
Once you get up above the second pool, you are free to jump in!
As you can see, the second pool also has a waterfall going into it. This is also where one can experience the highest jumps in this area. I was the only one of the men who didn't do it and I have no regrets. I have never really enjoyed jumping off of high places, and besides, I have absolutely no health insurance! Up at the third pool, which I have no pictures of, one can really get stupid and swim through caves in rocks (though it must be fun!). Of course, the pool down at the bottom is also very deep, and worth the trip in itself if you ask me.
Flying from the second pool to the first
The Three-Falls 2009 crew!
The last two pictures, and possibly some others were taken by my cousin, Kym. She has more articles on Salmon Creek and Three Falls on her blog.
It is difficult to put into words the sheer relaxation, enjoyment, and satisfaction I am experiencing during my extended stay here in Humboldt County. I was sent here to take care of my dad's house located by the Eel River on a beautiful piece of hillside land. It doesn't take much effort. The most important things are to keep the vegetables and flowers from dying, and keep the old dog and cat happy. Every day I seem to wake up with a clear mind without any concerns, and it lasts through the day. I often take a moment to reflect on how great of a feeling this is.
I sort of think that this relates to the fact that this is the first time in my life that I have not had a plan of any sort. There is no reason for me to be any specific place at any specific time. I have always had school or obligations of some sort that I was forced to mold my life around, but now that I have graduated, that is no longer a factor.
I also think my tranquility here relates to my frustration with Japanese society during my recent stay there. There are so many customs, formalities, and social expectations of people there that seem to make things more difficult than they need to be. I really started to long for "laid-back" Californian ways. Obviously, Humboldt takes this concept to the extreme, and I am not complaining!
I will be back blogging soon with some details and pictures from some of the fun activities I have been up to here. Thanks for reading.
To continue where I left off in Part One, I finally made it to Santa Cruz and almost instantly hit the beach with my friend, Robert, and his dog, Beefcake. The next day, July 3rd, we went bigger and drove north on Highway One for around eleven miles to the beautiful beach seen above.
Looking back south as we started walking north
We basically decided to walk north as far as we could, and it was very rewarding. Within one-hundred yards or so we were the only people around and the terrain was so beautiful!
Flat rocks with occasional red spots
Green moss and red rock
The rocks led to more beach
This rocky ecosystem also had some neat tide pools. We were always near lots of wildlife with all sorts of birds, pools full of sea-life, and occasional seals in the area.
These birds made cool noises
Tide pools
Three starfish
Seal
Passing a "no-pass"
Though we passed a couple "no-passes", we finally got to one that we weren't going to be able to easily get around. As you have seen from my pictures, this was a breathtakingly beautiful spot, and it may be hard to believe, but there was occasional litter to be found so Robert and I decided that as we walked back we would pick up all the trash we found. Robert was taking care of Beefcake so I carried the trash. The first thing we found was a Disney helium balloon that had yet to be popped. I opened it carefully so that I could use it as a bag to carry all the trash we would come across and as I bit into it I could taste the helium as it seeped into my mouth. It turned out that there were at least six of these balloons scattered around the two miles or so we covered on the beach. In all, the trash we gathered was enough to fill up one balloon.
Something that felt really good was almost as soon as we had decided to pick up trash and grabbed that first balloon we were rewarded with good karma in the form of a nice dog-frisbee in perfect condition! It was bright, neon colors, and it seems like there would be no way we could have missed it on the way there, so we figure we were rewarded by the karma police. Check out the video at the end of this post to see Beefcake make a nice catch!
We then went to the beach by the Boardwalk
River meets ocean
The 4thof July
As you can see, Robert stays in a neighborhood very close to the beach, and though his house needs some work, most of the places visible in this picture are worth over one million dollars because of this prime location.
The BBQ was going all day, and through the night
Are old buddy Asha showed up with some delicious bacon-wrapped scallops, but we also cooked sausages, burgers, and corn. Also, In three days Robert and I ate an entire Costco apple pie, and drank many American beers! Yum! I bought the Kirkland microbrews while at Costco. I thought they were pretty good!
Laid-back America
Lots of soccer
Nightfall
All we had to do to see an epic fireworks display was walk down the street to the beach where crazy people were lighting off an incredibly dangerous amount of powerful fireworks! It made for an exhilarating atmosphere, but it was scary at times because it is easy for these types of fireworks to be shot off wrong, which leads to them exploding without leaving the ground. This actually happened right outside of Robert's house, but luckily I was inside, asleep on the couch, at the time. Hey, it was almost 11:30!
Tons of people on the beach
The moon was nice and bright too!
In all, my time Independence Day weekend in Santa Cruz was a blast, and I can't wait to visit there again. California sure is a wonderful place to be in the summer!
I will keep this brief, but watching Michael Jackson's memorial yesterday had me wondering who the excellent, Asian-looking singer was who was front-and-center for a large portion of the broadcast. The first thing I thought was, "When has there ever been as Asian singing lead on US network television?" I still can't come up with an example.
Anyway, it turns out that I wasn't the only one wondering because Yahoo's front page has linked to a Rolling Stone article titled "Mystery Artist Reveled". They didn't get into the point I made about never seeing Asian singers on US TV, but they did give a little info about her and her background. Apparently her mother is Japanese, and her father is American, I'm guessing Black. Check her out in action:
Fun beaches and friends drew me to Santa Cruz for Independence Day
My decision to spend my 4th of July in Santa Cruz ended up being a very good one as I had a great time, and the weather was spectacular! Before I get into my experience down there, though, I feel I should touch on my interesting drive there from Humboldt County.
Having a very little income, and a million ideas how to spend the little cash I have saved, I am somewhat forced to look for money in creative ways (which usually end up working somehow). I have had some expediences posting in Craigslist's "rideshare" section so I decided up offer a ride to anyone needing to get anywhere between Redway and Santa Cruz. A woman ended up offering me twenty dollars to take her and her young child from Redway to the Oakland Coliseum Bart Station right off of Interstate 880.
I picked up the woman, two years older than me, and her son at 8AM at the Dean Creek Resort. She was very much what one might describe as a "hippie" with her very long dreadlocks and sarong-like attire. She and her son were very clean, which made me happy as I had just vacuumed my car.
At first we started taking about the lack of any public transportation in Humboldt County, including Greyhound. She mentioned that she takes Greyhound a lot, and that once in Oakland she would be taking it to Sacramento This prompted me to say, "Anyone who takes Greyhound a lot must have some wild stories." To which she quickly responded, "Yeah, I once was kicked off of Greyhound for having intercourse." I laughed and said something to prevent an awkward silence. She then continued to describe a story where on a bus from LA to Oakland the driver got lost for multiple hours on a detour as Interstate 5 was closed and everybody was really mad at the driver so he was afraid to stop the bus because they were threatening to kick him off. Passengers "needing" cigarette/marijuana breaks started even started smoking in the bus! (Which got me wondering how kids in high school were able to constantly get away with smoking weed on the school buses.)
This lady also talked a lot about how she is a recovered heroin addict. She also mentioned around five times that "they don't let me on planes." Hmmm.... Another awkward moment came when she mentioned how her son was conceived in the back of a semi truck! However, the one statement of hers that really blew my mind came as we crossed the Richmond Bridge and she said "This really reminds me of one of the times I was kidnapped..." She went on to tell me a story of how when she was a transient in Berkeley she was taken by some men. Anyway, we finally arrived in Oakland and I dropped them off so they could catch BART. I then got back on 880 and exited towards Santa Clara to go to a place to get my car smogged that I found a coupon for online.
Hiep in Santa Clara
The only place here in Southern Humboldt to get your car smogged at, Redwood Towing, wanted to charge seventy dollars to smog my Audi sedan. The place I went to in Santa Clara, a small business called Hiep, cost me only thirty dollars and it wasn't even out of my way at all. I was in and out in 20 minutes without an appointment, and my car passed!
A little bit of history is being made now in Mendocino County as the Confusion Hill bluffs bypass is now open, making this Northwest California stretch of 101 a little less like an obstacle course. Probably since the day these bluffs were originally made into a road they have been sliding away, blocking this area of California from the Bay Area, and other points south. I can remember many times slides on these bluffs have obstructed my travels in and out of Humboldt County. I'm sure that many snowboarding trips are canceled in the winter due to the closures as well. I am also sure that many people have memories of simply parking on those bluffs because of how often it was under construction and subject to one-way traffic.
Anyway, yesterday I was on the way to Humboldt after celebrating the 4th of July in Santa Cruz and decided to get some pictures to preserve the memories of this cool stretch of road. I am sure you all have your own stories and memories, and I hope these pictures help you reminisce.
All blogs found on this site written before 2009 have been imported from MySpace. Some may not look too pretty, and some of the pictures won't enlarge, but it is a small price to pay to not have to deal with MySpace's primitive blog setup anymore!
I recently graduated San Francisco State University. I majored in Japanese and minored in International Relations, and spent a year studying at Tokyo's prestigious Waseda University. I grew up in a very rural area of Humboldt County California. That remote setting built up a lot of ambition in me to get out and chase my dreams. Thanks for reading!
