April 7, 2008

Our trip to Humboldt County

View from our vacation rental
The cottage we lived in when we lived in Eureka
Victorian village of Ferndale
Portrait of Hobart Brown
Hobart's living room
Creepy cemetery in Ferndale
Gang on the beach at Patrick's point
Love birds on Wedding Rock
Caitlin and Nicole
Carson mansion,Eureka
The original and first Restoration Hardware
Cool book store in Old Town Eureka
On our way home, through the Avenue of The Giants

It has been 22 years since we moved away from Humboldt county. This is where my husband and I met, fell in love,married,graduated college,and had our first daughter. We moved away as a young family of 3 in January 1986,and return for a visit as a mature family with grown children. In those 22 years, we did go visit from time to time, since we have dear friends that still live up there. We had a lot of good times with them as did our children with there children.
We spent our time this vacation visiting the university(Humboldt State),checking out Arcata, Eureka and did a bit of hiking at Patrick's Point state park.All the usual stuff.There were some things that changed for the better and some things that have not. Glad to see that the true hippies still are up there,and glad to see that my beloved Art Dept. hadn't changed hardly at all!! We visited the Victorian village of Ferndale, a town untouched by time. We got creeped out when Nicole and Caitlin noticed that in the middle of the day there were hardly any people and all the shades were drawn in the middle of the day. For those of you who know Stephan King's work, Salem's lot was filmed there. A tale of Vampires. We quickly left after a strange encounter with a local store keeper. Before we did though, we toured the home of Hobart Brown (google him). He is the founder of the annual kinetic sculpture race. very odd man, who some say was the head of the wicken group in that area. He passed away last November. His home is very cluttered and has a very weird feel to it,see photos above.
All in all ,great fun with the family and friends.

Oh, forgot to mention the Restoration Hardware story. The photo above is the first R&H there ever was. My husband worked there with the founder,Steven Gordon, back in the eighties. I even did some of the windows from time to time. Very funny for us to see what R&H is now. It was so much cooler then I must say, as it catered to wood workers and people restoring all the Victorian houses in the area.

10 comments:

  1. How wonderful you live in an area with such interesting places to visit! We missed ya, but it's apparent that you had a great time. I'd love to be able to drive thru the redwood forest-wow.
    Show us more pictures, pls. Nerm

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  2. Fun pictures! Love the Restoration Hardware tid bits. It kind of reminds me of the way Abercrombie Fitch started. You could have gone all day without mentioning Salem's Lot. LOL! I made the mistake of watching that when I was little...still having the ocassional nightmare from that 25+ years later! Glad you are back!

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  3. here is the link i guess

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  4. Looks like you had a fun and interesting trip with your family! :) I love the Victorian buildings and the mansion...beautiful!! And the creepy cemetery and the large trees...I can just imagine the fog rolling in...oooooo....Welcome home! Victoria Lynn

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  5. You guys are a really cute family. I like the picture of you and your husband. Looks like you all had an amazing time. That's funny about Restoration Hardware. We have one of those stores here in Nashville. I love it but for the most part my decor is not that simplistic so it doesn't quite go with my house. haha - Kitty

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  6. Sounds like a lovely trip, even the creepy part ;)...thanks for the coffee advice, I will give Peet's a try!

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  7. merci ! for this post !

    (+ you all look G.R.E.A.T !)

    SierraMoon

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  8. wow, you make eureka look cool. i am in southern oregon and my husband has a territory that goes down to eureka. ive been once and thought it a depressed town. seeing your pics i might have to try again.

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  9. What a wonderful Restoration Hardware. Thanks for pointing me to this posting. If I visited in that picturesque place I couldn't leave.

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