take a long drive with me on california one

the project that brad is working on (CRAZIE [don't ask me what that acronym stands for]) has a project site in california, at a place called cape mendocino. he gets to go down there once a month, and i've been aching to go since the beginning of the summer. despite all the things that oregonians say about californians (they're coming here and buying all the property, are materialistic, build huge homes, are annoying vacationers, etc), i absolutely love california. it's a lot like what people say about north-easterners - they're hard-headed, abrasive, rude, work-oriented. it's not necessarily all true. and, i kinda miss how straight-forward everyone from the northeast is because, let me tell you, most oregonians are not. most people in the lab miss my fairly consistent sarcasm and tend to walk around issues rather than addressing them directly. [sidenote: i remember when i was a kid, my sister and i would say things like, "mmmmmm you know what's really delicious? popcorn? i really like popcorn" and my parents would say, "ask for what you want". it's a lot like that.]

anyways, i love california and think it's just absolutely beautiful. and then a few weeks ago, CRAZIE needed community surveys done of their sites and since ben and i of my project are the "community survey experts" (haha), we got to go and do them. and so brad and i got to go down to the california sites. we drove through the redwoods to get there and past arcata and i called my dad to talk about humboldt (where he went to college), and it was just great to be back in california. the oregon coast is beautiful, but i just love the golden hills of california.



[gold]


the site is south of eureka along the lost coast highway. you turn down a road to the city of ferndale, and then go down this crazy, ridiculous, windy, narrow road out to the town of petrolia (claim to fame: first oil well site in california) near that mattole river. we turned down the road (i was driving), and i said to brad, "uhhh are you sure this is it?" and he says, "oh yes, definitely". it's really out there in the middle of nowhere. which of course, just makes it all the more enjoyable. plus, we were driving the ford fusion which handles a lot like a sports car, so that made driving really fun.





we were camping about a 15 minute drive from the site and woke up at 3 in the morning to go survey the site. and worked for a good hour in the dark and finally the sun rose and lit up those hills and pushed back the fog and goodness it's stunning.







when we got back to our campsite, the people camping next to us asked us why the hell we were leaving at 3 in the morning and one of the guys says, "i thought you were pregnant and having a baby or something!" to which we laughed, said that no, we were biologists and had to make it out to the coast during low tide and the woman says to her husband, "see?! i told you she wasn't pregnant!" a good laugh.





sadly, we were only there for a day, and we had to drive back up to port orford, but we got to drive through the redwoods on the way back. even saw some elk just standing there on the side of the road! massive animals. and of course had to walk through the trees a bit, just to gawk at the hugeness of them.







the first weekend of september / last weekend of august, we're going down to california to celebrate my dad's 50th birthday. these california trips are the first times that brad has ever been to california and now i get to bring him to monterey and show him where i fell in love with the ocean. so excited!