Vacating, days 6 and 7: wrap-up.

THURSDAY
Thursday, Sir turned 30. We had a REAL barbeque (brisket, slow-cooked over a smoldering low-heat fire for a long period of time) with his family and he drank a 30th Anniversary Sierra Nevada. It seemed appropriate.

This trip was his 30th/my 26th birthday present (along with some new kitchen supplies). The correct way to birthday-party is surrounded by family and friends. So, I think we did it right. I hope he thinks so too.

We also rounded out the week with one last run, during which time I do believe I conquered those hills. Booya.

FRIDAY
6:30am - 12pm PST:             Drive to San Francisco, get incredibly carsick and crabby
12pm - 3:30pm PST:             SFO airport relaxation, breathe, undo carsickness
3:30pm PST - 12am EST:     SFO > JFK, re-induce motion sickness
Bed.

POST-SCRIPT
Upon our return, we received the below photos from my mom via snail-mail. Our hiking pictures reminded her of a trip she had taken with my father, the year before they got married. They're hiking around Wurtsboro, NY with my Aunt Jan and Uncle Wayne, who still live in Wurtsboro to this day.

Aunt Jan and Uncle Wayne, hiking

Uncle Wayne giving my dad (afro alert!!) a piggy-back ride

Mom, hiking

Aunt Jan, Uncle Wayne, Mom

Mom, nature

Waterfall.

I like that my dad isn't in too many of these pics, and instead was taking pics of my mom. That's cute.

Many thanks to the Parker Jones family for their hospitality. We'll miss you, vacation. Hope to see you again soon.

Vacating, days 4 and 5: lumberjacky pursuits.

TUESDAY
Tuesday's main event consisted of Sir and his father chopping down a tree in the yard and hauling it out to be made into chips. The tree had been cut down years ago when it looked as though it might fall on the house, but a whole bunch of new trees had grown out of the stump. Apparently those redwoods are tenacious little buggers.

A lumberjack of my very own - swoon.

We also got after that run again, which went much better this time. I didn't try to keep up with Sir and was able to finish without walking, hooray! I truly do not remember being able to run a marathon.

WEDNESDAY
We went on a seven-mile hike in the Arcata Community Forest, located basically right behind Sir's parents' house. Sir showed me where he had trained for cross-country in the forest, and again I was impressed with his lumberjacky qualities. There are some angry-steep hills in that forest.

All the beautiful forests here make me feel a little bit awful. Could Manhattan have looked like this, had we left it alone?

Run, day 3. Not great, but definitely doable. Legs feel happy to be running again.

Vacating, days 2 and 3.

We're still on vacation, which is pretty glorious. In case you're wondering, a week (or more) is the correct amount of time to take for a vacation. Long weekends are just not long enough.

SUNDAY
Sunday morning, we got up early for a long bike ride to Trinidad with Sir's mom and uncle. The ride ended up at about 33.84 miles, and was probably one of my more epic rides, for several reasons:

1. Northern Cali is hella hilly. Rolling hills the entire way made this a seriously challenging ride. Much more so than Prospect Park, or the ol' flatty-flat Chicago lakeshore.
2. We rode multiple types of terrain: rough roads, highway, and some pretty loose gravel (new for me). Pretty sure now I'm ready for cyclocross season (nope, not even a little bit).
3. I rode Uncle Dave's hybrid commuter bike, which made for my first non-road-bike ride in quite some time. I'm not used to riding with flat handlebars and may have wrenched my wrists a little in the process. Super comfy bike, other than that.
4. The views along the way are just insane. We just don't have mountains or the ocean like that in Brooklyn.

We stopped for pictures at mile 15.

And again at mile 19.5.

Some planking went down as well.

Sir wins for best use of core muscles, I think.

All of this resulted in a seriously long hot shower and an afternoon of naps.

MONDAY
Sir and I got up early for a truly horrendous run (see above, re: hilly) prior to trekking out to Fern Canyon with his family. Fern Canyon is pretty spectacular - I think they filmed the second Jurrassic Park in there. It felt pretty Jurrassic - silent, lush and more or less untouched.

We took a lot of pictures, but they don't do a very good job recreating the feeling of being there, being enveloped in stillness like that. They don't do a good job capturing the way the light was sparkling through the redwoods, filtering softly all the way to the forest floor. They also don't capture the way the silence was interrupted by the sound of the creek running through the canyon and the trickly waterfalls of water, sparkling like diamonds as they dripped down the ferny canyon walls.

Here's some of the better ones, anyhow.

And then we went to dinner at Sir's aunt and uncle's house, which included a run-in with a chubby baby bear (he was crossing the road in front of our car) and this truly resplendent salad.

I think it was the prettiest salad I ever saw. The produce out here is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

Hello, Arcata.

After an entire day of traveling, we finally arrived in Arcata late last night. Let the vacationing begin! I suppose technically it began when we touched down in San Francisco, or when we stopped in Napa and St. Helena for a quick tasting and some grub, but it wasn't until nine hours after touching down in SF that we entered the cool stillness of Humboldt County and truly felt we'd arrived.

Wine tasting at Turnbull Winery.

Shrimp tacos and other yummies at Taylor's Refresher, aka Gott's Roadhouse.

We celebrated our arrival by passing out immediately. An eighteen-hour day of traveling can have that effect.

Cozy toesies.

We got up early and walked to town for breakfast at Los Bagels, where the kind folks of Arcata offered gluten-free bagels for me and my people (the gluten-intolerant). Not used to making bagel decisions, I hastily blurted out that I wanted cream cheese and lox, with onion. Some of the best decisions in life are hastily made; that bagel was definitely one of them.

Then we went to the farmer's market, where a girl was selling poems, written on the spot on a typewriter in a box. In my heart, I felt the unmistakable twinge of someone in Williamsburg, dying of happiness (and maybe jealousy).

We bought beautiful heirloom tomatoes, poblano chiles, jalapeño peppers, an onion, cilantro and some arugula. Oh, and a loaf of gluten-free bread that was described as containing carob and molasses, but pretty much tasted like a really good rye bread.

I read all afternoon in a sunny nook, with a slice of the bread and two big glasses of milk. I read the entire first book of the Hunger Games series. That book was intended to last me for the entire vacation, and instead I read the whole thing on day one. Whoops.

We made chiles rellenos with the poblanos, stuffed with sweet corn and cheese.

Overall, a pretty excellent start to the vacation.