Due to the wildfires in Sonoma counties, we had to detour away from the coastline to get to Oakland
After The Redwoods National Park, we made our way down to Humboldt County California. Sadly, while we were camped on the beach in the park a large wildfire/firestorm broke out in Sonoma County, called the Tubbs Fire, moving quickly and killing many people overnight. By the time we had gotten to cellphone reception Camrin had many texts and voicemail messages from her mom asking where we were. Luckily we were 4.5 hours north of the fire but it sat directly on the path to get to Oakland. We had to keep that in mind for driving the next week. We made our way just south of the redwoods to Arcata to stay with our friend Nicki and her girlfriend Marisa. Arcata lost mobile data and reception because the fiber optic cable servicing the area was severed by a construction crew. Laura and I had to find a McDonalds to get wifi so google maps would work and we could find where Nicki lived. Eventually, we made it!
Group photo! Marisa, Nicki, Laura, and Camrin along with Professor the cat and Leeloo the dog.
The joys of having a refrigerator to store eggs for breakfast!
Professor soaks up some sun
Leeloo snuggles up in a heated blanket
Hellooooo Humboldt!
Students hanging out around campus
Then we joined a protest! First peoples protest for the removal of that Mckinley statue. Like him or not Mckinley did terrible things to Native people and their lands. Today the physiological wounds still affect many native tribes to this day. Local News Channel 3 has the scoop.An elder sings a prayer.Then we peacefully marched around the square.
Thanks Nicki for letting us crash at your place. Now we’re headed over the mountains to central California. It was a scenic drive, but the land is so dry and brown. We even passed through a small mountain town that recently had a wildfire.
Hwy 299 through the Shasta Trinity National Forest.We had breakfast on the side of the road.This is the small town that had a wildfire earlier in the year.
Once we made it to I-5 the land of central California was beautiful golden rolling hills and some of the largest farms we have ever seen. We made our way to our campsite for the next couple of nights. About 20 miles west of I-5 was an old campground with designated sites, picnic tables, and pit toilets. The campground sat on the side of a dammed lake and was surrounded by fig trees. Best of all it was free! We ended up staying two nights, we liked it so much.
Those golden hills!The lake. You can kind of see the dam across the way.Time for bed.Found this sneaky guy next to our campsite! Ew! Just a Bull Snake, no need to worry.Probably the snake’s lunch.There were Quail everywhere.Figs!Inside a fig. It was pretty late into the season for figs, but Camrin managed to find a few that were edible.What are you?What are you?Wandering around the campground area. Huge Pinecones!Even though everything is super dry and brown, it’s still really pretty out here.
Walking back to our site, Camrin narrowly missed stepping on this huge Bull Snake. Ew!Our neighbors for the night live in a school bus!
Then the wind picked up. The rooftop tent holds up great!
Camrin takes the rain fly off so it doesn’t flap like crazy through the night.Cute bug on the speaker.Laura tries her luck at fishing.There goes the sun.Hanging out at our site.This was a nice site. Another lucky find.The sun sets so early as we get later into Fall. That doesn’t stop us from getting work done. Camrin attaches some snaps for our solar panel case.
The Next Morning
Making breakfast and enjoying the view.This is our amazing coffee maker!Putting the rain fly back on Camrin gets distracted by how awesome this place is.
Back on the I-5 to Oakland, CA
Pretty scenery.
Palm Tree!
Farmer kicking up a lot of dust. From a distance, we thought it was a prairie fire.
Sweet Van!Huge Farm!
Thanks for reading our Blog! Up Next… Oakland and San Fransico! We changed things up and became city girls for a few days.
