Today we departed from Eureka and continued our generally southward progress. There are currently some real nasty fires burning in Central and Northern California that had closed our route but, last time we checked, the road south (US-101) is now open and we are giving it a whirl. We headed into the gorgeous country south of Eureka and had a pleasant drive although there were a few extra short delays due to construction.
About 90 miles down the road, we entered Richardson Grove Redwoods State Park where there are some really large trees only slightly encroaching on the twisty highway. The trees are truly majestic but they did keep this RV driver creeping along when trying to maneuver our lengthy arrangement past their massive stalks. We will go back for a closer look tomorrow, without the 34′ of trailer.
Right on the southern edge of the Park, we pulled into the Richardson Grove RV Park where the nice reception lady gave us a great rate of $20 a day. The place has no wifi but we did get a pull-thru spot with good satellite reception and full hookups.

We took a spin south of Eureka today, visiting the communities of Scotia, Fortuna, Loleta, Rio Dell, Fernbridge and the almost adjacent Ferndale. Some smart aleck must have come up with two Fern-somethings across a bridge from one another.
This part of the world supplied lumber at a furious rate for about 80 years but the production has substantially diminished recently. Many lumber baron types and their minions must have lived in the beautiful Victorian and Craftsman architectural style houses and buildings built here in Humboldt County and there are some superb examples in all these communities but the best assortment is in Ferndale.
Peggy and I cruised the streets of Ferndale checking out the magnificent structures. We drove quite a few miles but covered almost no distance since most of our foray was circling the blocks to see all the great houses. As we drove away from downtown, we noted some of the grand old houses are vacant and falling into disrepair. When not properly maintained, they look remarkably similar to the Haunted House at Disneyland.
We hit the grocery store and diesel station to fill up before our departure from Eureka tomorrow morning. We like the Mad River RV Park and the architecture here but Eureka itself is ugly, there are homeless everywhere, food is expensive and we just didn’t have the imagination to be interested in this locale. Time to go.
We took some Ferndale pix you can see if you click here

We made a completely unfulfilling shopping trip today, finding nothing that we wanted. Peggy and I popped into Costco to see if we could get her a decent raincoat but the item she had identified on the internet as being THE ONE wasn’t anywhere to be found. I also made a trip into a Harbor Freight and didn’t find what I needed. Strikeouts on shopping today.
Not to be overcome with disappointment, we spent a bit of time driving around the Arcata and Eureka areas. We spotted a few nice houses. We also spotted what seems like an ample supply of homeless people for a town of only some 27,000 residents. It seems that quite possibly the actual population is higher but a bunch of them don’t have addresses other than “in the shrubs behind the muffler shop” or “under the north end of the Eel River bridge” and, therefore, missed out on the latest census. We also spotted a billboard advertising the Emerald Cup which is a contest to see who has the best reefer. Maybe I’ll check that out.
Someone who went to the Emerald Cup can be seen in a picture by clicking here