Arcata Dos

 October 13th - 2011

     All apologies for the time delay. We have been under the influence of Nor Cal laziness... At least that's the valid excuse I'm using. After our first night visiting Holly in Arcata, we awoke to the burning smell of ganja. Note: "We did not inhale."
          Breakfast directed us toward Los Bagels. A comfortable, spanish-influenced bagel shoppe. Upon arriving at the joint, we ran into a friendly, homeless-looking fellow named Brian. We gave him a wave and he swung his rig around, a two-wheeled bike, approaching us for a chit chat. Noticing our license plates he asked us if we were looking to baptize him. We laughed and joked about Utah offering to cleanse his sins, read scriptures together, and then convert him. He wasn't interested. So we headed to the laundromat to seek out other possible converts.
          Not having washed any clothes up until then we were jubilant to have fresh, clean undies. It's true! You can only re-wear underwear a certain number of times before it just gets gross. Just ask Sheldon...
During our cleanse cycle, Sheldon and I witnessed the true citizens of Arcata all coming to clean their dirty laundry. I caught up on my blog and got a fresh start on our apparel stockpile. After our clothes were lemony-fresh, we headed to the Arcata dunes. At the beach we watched the waves, had lunch, and reminisced about Life. The thought of Life is truly perplexing. So many possibilities, questions, thoughts, guesses, theories, what-if's... The ideology of sleep also crossed our minds. For some reason the waves create this calmness that allow the brain to wander deep into thought, at least personally.
           Soon after, our cousin Holly was freed up from work and her midterm so she took us on a tour of the Community Forest in Arcata. Great balls of fire! This forest was magnificent. Breathtaking treetop views, sunlight pouring through the towering redwoods shining down onto the lush green shrubbery, hippies with riddles to allow passage on bridges... Trippin' hippies. No joke. We weren't able to pass a bridge on the trail we were walking on without being able to answer their riddle. It went something like this, "Alive without breath, As cold as death; Never thirsty, ever drinking, all in mail, never clinking." What is it? I was stumped trying to take in what all was going on and we only got it because one of the peace-talkers was imitating the the answer. (If anyone can guess it you'll get two high-fives once I get back.)
          We passed with safety (and a toke...) with the hippies. Holly then showed us to a cool taco stand called Alma's, no BOM reference. After refueling we went to a rock-climbing gym and got showed up by Holly time and time again. She was climbing like a flat-footed baboon. It wasn't embarrassing. After skin and pride losses we dropped off Holly and headed home to sleep.