Hello, Arcata

Graduating is great. I have a piece of paper that validates me as an adult. I also got to go on a trip; a return to a place I once called home: Arcata, CA.

I left the small city of hills and forest for Boise, ID to be with my now-husband Sam. As much as I love the City of Trees, leaving Arcata left a small hole in my heart. I've missed the giant trees and the salt in the air. Taking the ocean out of my life was difficult. So, graduation gift: travel to the coast.

So, my husband and I packed up the truck full of clothes and toys, gently shoved our two year old in his seat, and embarked on a projected 13 hour long road trip. A potty training 2 year old and 13 hours in the car? Sounds like a great idea, doesn't it?

(Spoiler: we were two hours off on our expected travel time. The trip, however, really was pretty darn great. On the road at 6:30 am and only a half an hour behind schedule.)

A fairly grueling 5.5 hours to Winnemucca, and we stopped for lunch. There's a lovely park by a museum that we've stopped at on road trips before the kid. We thought it would be a pretty good place to stop with. The park was empty when we arrived, but quickly populated by a family with a van and children of all ages and an old man with a dog and cigarettes. We ate our lunch accompanied by the perfume of nicotine and the screams of children other than our own, took the kid to the playground, loaded up, and got back on the road.

Next stop: Fernley, just before heading north again to Susanville. Jack-in-the-Box treated us fairly well with clean restrooms, hot food, and data service. We downloaded more music. The middle of nowhere had gotten awfully dull with only three play lists. There's the naivete of the modern world: you expect cell service and data, but, it just doesn't always happen.

More gas in Susanville, a quick stretch of the legs, and back on the road. It wasn't until here that the two year old started getting fed up with the drive. Toys and cows and nori snacks satiated him though. And we pushed on.

Subway in Redding and then back on the road. The husband had driven the entire time thus far. His shoulder was done for and his mind shot. I took the wheel to go up and over the last four hills.

Okay, they're not hills so much as they are mountains. An older, narrow mountain road with switchbacks and steep grades. I'd driven it countless times when I was younger and going to HSU. Day, night, sleet, snow, rain, and even sun. Never in a car as nice as my husband's Dodge Dakota. I had a '78 Volkswagon Westfalia (mine was brown and much more beat up) and an '87 Honda Civic when I drove the 299 before. Up and over Buckhorn, the biggest hill, and the dirt started to change a bit. It lost some of the red and started gaining the darker, more familiar color of Humboldt County. Whiskeytown is a slow drive. Though the miles are few, they last forever. Oregon Mountain is smaller and much more manageable than the notorious Buckhorn. And here the scent hit me. Pine resin started disappearing and the earth started taking over. I looked at my husband and said, "It smells like home."

Berry Summit is next to nothing. It's Lord Ellis that I hate. That last climb up is completed with a peak at the ocean and the full earth, ocean, and mold Humboldt County perfume, and followed by a slope down with switch back and hard turns that curve around the mountain every which way. A bit much for this coastal girl, but with a huge reward at the end. A place where limits are stretched and comfort is found. A place with fog-ripened tomatoes and home grown cheese around every corner. A place where the trees are taller than the sky and the people say hello.

Hello, Arcata. It's been a while.