It’s not a view in  a puddle …  but it is an upside-down view. Enjoy.

Marsh View #1, Arcata, CA

Marsh View #2, Arcata, CA

The area was originally a sewage treatment plant, but a while back (20 years ago? 15?) they converted the area to a fancy waste-water treatment swamp/marsh. It is rather scenic on a sunny day, particularly since there were more flowers than I’d expected.

Below are a few photos I took a couple of weeks ago.  See what you think.

Purple marsh flowers, Arcata, CA

More purple marsh flowers, Arcata, CA

“Snowflake” flower, Arcata, CA

Marsh Flower, Arcata, CA

Sunlight sparkle #1, Arcata, CA

Sunlight sparkle #2, Arcata, CA

Sunlight sparkle #3, Arcata, CA

Hint of red on a white marsh flower

McKinleyville is a town a few miles north of Arcata, CA, where we’re currently staying. For a town that’s not very big, it has a very tall totem pole at one edge of a Safeway parking lot.

I know, that doesn’t make sense. But that’s what it is: a very tall totem pole in a Safeway parking lot.

Totem Pole, Safeway Lot, McKinleyville, CA

The sign on the base doesn’t tell you much more than that, except to claim it is the world’s largest totem pole:

Sign on Totem Pole, McKinleyville, CA

Note it does not claim to be the world’s tallest totem pole, however.

Oddly, the totem pole has its own Facebook page, as it turns out, but I didn’t find it that useful in figuring out what the heck this totem pole is doing in an urban parking lot.

However, if you click here you can read an article that explains that it was originally erected to garner publicity for the small strip-mall connected to the Safeway – the idea was that if they put the world’s largest totem pole there, people would come to shop at the stores there.

Or something.

That article has more information about the carvers, and a video of them re-carving a “new” one when the old one started to fall apart. However, there’s no explanation of how they came to carve a totem pole for something in this part of the country.  I mean, I don’t believe there is any tradition of totem poles among the Native American groups in this area; the main totem pole building people are in Northern Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska. But since I haven’t looked that up, I might not be right about that.

But if there is a tradition of Native American totem poles in this area, you’d think a mention of that would have made it on to the sign.  Of course, the sign is busy giving you the size information about the pole: note that it’s the largest in the world. Not the tallest, just the largest.

Ah well. Today’s Monday Mystery has some loose ends that need to be solved, but I’ll leave our tall totem tale here, with the knowledge that there is really big totem pole in a Safeway parking lot in McKinleyville, CA.

—————

BTW, the people interviewed in the article make a big deal about how “biggest” is — well,  if not “better”, at least as good as “tallest”.  But size doesn’t matter — at least not to this 5′ tall-when-I-round-up blog poster.

Nor does it matter in the following related-to-Broadway songs…

First, from the musical Barnum, we have Tom Thumb singing Bigger isn’t Better:

Next, watch as the 4’11” Kristen Chenoweth celebrates how size doesn’t matter to the Drama Desk awards:

Enjoy.

I should start by saying that there are some rather large slugs here in Arcata:

Our slug “neighbor”

That’s a photo of the slug that often shows up on the wall across from our outdoor tub/shower. In this photo it seems to be curled up – maybe it’s taking a nap? But it is more typically stretched out straight along the wall like this:

Our slug “neighbor” stretching out

Except, that is, when it is on the ground,  as it was earlier this week when Chris almost stepped on it. It later left a trail of slug slime as it slithered away, so we knew that it had survived the encounter. But oddly (or perhaps not) we then didn’t see it for days. But it appeared this evening – the second photo above was taken today.

But that’s not what I want to talk about in this post, since this was originally supposed to be a Food on Friday post.  You see, the Slug Slime I really want to talk about is a special condiment made by a bagel place in Arcata called Los Bagels:

Bottles of Slug Slime, Los Bagels, Arcata

Cucumbin Bagel, Los Bagels, Arcata

Another Slug Slime, seen in a local supermarket

OK, well, I can’t say for sure that these unusually hued vegetables are particular to Arcata, or even to Northern California. I do recall seeing purple carrots in Santa Barbara, for example, although I don’t seem to have a photo of them, even though I did buy some while we were there to try (they tasted like carrots but looked a little odd as they were purple). Unfortunately, though,  I can’t find any photos I might have taken of them. Ah well.

But down in Santa Barbara, it was just the carrots which were odd colors. Here in Arcata, though,  we have run into a couple of vegetables that are oddly not green, even though you would expect them to be.

First up,  purple broccoli:

Purple Broccoli or Cauliflower

Oddly green-purple cooking water from cooking that purple vegetable

Or maybe that’s purple cauliflower.  The sign said it was broccoli,  but then I asked the guy at the stand last week and he said it was really all colorful cauliflower. It also comes in green — which, when I thought it was broccoli didn’t seem odd, of course.  It comes in other colors, too, including gold:

Golden head of broccoli/cauliflower

The color of the water after cooking this one was just pale, with no green or gold or even yellow overtone.

FWIW,  both kinds tasted like regular white cauliflower. Well, except the purple one maybe tasted a little more like broccoli. Hmm, or maybe not.

Anyway, there was also a purple pepper:

Purple Pepper

It didn’t taste like much of anything, actually, it was crunchy but very bland. Perhaps if Peter Piper picked a peck of purple peppers to pickle, that would add a pinch of pizzazz.

OK, well, maybe not.  But at least it’s not purple prose — just a bit of purple produce for today’s Food on Friday.  

Chris and I stopped here on our journey from Santa Barbara to Arcata a couple of weeks ago. It’s a stunning vantage point from which you get a view of the entire San Francisco Bay, including some iconic landmarks. Traffic was horrendous (of course) getting through San Francisco to reach this spot, but the views are stunning. I even got my “big” camera out to snap a few shots.

Of course, we now have an iPhone so we also experimented with a couple of “selfies”. Tourists – what do you expect. It was actually rather funny – we just got the iPhone a couple of weeks ago, and we don’t typically take selfies. So neither of us is very good at it. As we were trying to figure it out, with the wind whipped around us, and we tried to figure out how to get both of us (who are wildly different heights) into the shot with the bridge behind us, another woman taking photos nearby offered to help take our photo. Which was nice of her to offer … but since we were specifically trying to take a selfie, that wasn’t going to help.

Anyway, FWIW, I’ve included our selfie attempts in with the scenic photos below, just for fun.

Enjoy.

P.S. As a reminder, you can click on the photos to see larger versions.

San Francisco Panorama from GG Bridge North Vista Point

Golden Gate Bridge from North Vista Point

Alcatraz and Part of the Bay Bridge from North Vista Point

City of San Francisco from North Vista Point

Panorama showing relative location of North Vista Point

Friendly tourist and friend at the GG North Vista Point (taken by the FT’s friend)

Friendly Tourist and friend at the GG North Vista Point (taken by the Friendly Tourist)

Now, it has WiFi (i.e. an Internet connection), which is our one non-negotiable go-to-requirement.  So that’s good. And, it has a full-sized, full-equipped kitchen, which means that we can easily prepare meals here, plus the queen-sized bed is pretty comfortable.

By far biggest quirk is that the bathtub/shower is … outside. Yup, outside.  There’s a sink and toilet (i.e. a half-bath) inside, but the shower is outside. Here’s a link to information about the place with some photos, so you can see the shower.  (BTW, ignore any prices you see; one of the reasons we decided to stay here is that the landlady cut us a super deal on the price since we are staying here for almost 8 weeks).

Now, taking a shower isn’t as cold as I’d feared, even thought the outdoor temps here don’t seem to regularly get above 70 at most. But the water stream is good and warm, and in addition to other furnishings the owners provided fluffy towels and bathrobes. So, all-in-all, not bad.

Of course, we’ve been here less than a week. Check back with me in 8 weeks, to see if my opinion has changed.

Anyway, that’s all really a digression from what prompted me to write this post. Another standard criteria for accommodations on the Plan G tour has been to rent a place that has a washer (and dryer, if a dryer is typical for the country. I.e., in Italy the places we rented had washers, but no dryers because typically people just don’t have dryers in Italy. Here in the U.S., though, if there’s a washer, there’s alway been a dryer).  An in-unit washer/dryer is a wonderful thing.  Truly.  Usually I reject places for our longer stays that don’t have a washer/dryer in the apartment, or at least have one available in a room on an adjacent floor in the same building.

However, this place in Arcata has no washer or dryer on-site. What it offers is just proximity to a local laundromat that’s a couple of miles away.

But … go back and read the note above about how  the landlady gave us a great deal on the price for this place for 8 weeks.  Let’s just say that the difference pays for a lot of loads of laundry.

So today I went off to the local laundromat and discovered that it’s not coin-operated, like most American ones. Nope, at this one you are supposed to buy a card from a machine on the wall using exactly four $1 bills (a fee that is refundable eventually). Then, you have to load money onto the card using the same machine, and then figure out how to operate the machines using the card. Using a machine on a wall  was highly reminiscent of aspects of my foray into the world of Italian laundromats years ago. This time, though, there was no family that needed my help. In fact,  there was even an attendant who sold me the card and loaded the money on it for me, bypassing the whole machine thing. Nice.

But now I feel like I’m an International Laundromat Pro.  If you know of anyone who wants to hire one, just let me know. My fees are very reasonable … although I will charge more than a mere four $1 bills.

——

P.S. BTW, for those who are new to the blog, here’s a shameless plug for my book: that story of my adventures as the “Local Laundromat Pro” is just one of the tales you’ll find in my book, Life on a Gelato Diet, available in paperback (and for Kindle) from Amazon, and in all other electronic formats from LeanPub.

As typical with our travels, the main mystery you might have, though, is “Why did they go there?”  Arcata is on the northern coast of California, and it seemed like a nice town when we passed through it a couple of months ago (we stopped here for lunch in May).

Moreover,  my project on early women photographers (1840-1930) has been greatly inspired by the work of a photo historian named Peter Palmquist. He was a photographer and photo historian from  …. Arcata. Yup, Arcata. And his research on all the early women photographers started with women who came from Humboldt County, which is this part of California.  Unfortunately, Mr. Palmquist died over a decade ago, and his archive and notes are all on the other side of the country at this point, inaccessible to researchers while the archives at Yale are remodelled. Ah well. But he published books (I have many) about women who were in this area,  and I’m still hoping to track down some more information while we’re here.

Plus, as I said, we thought that Arcata seemed like a nice place to check out for a while. So, we decided to stay here for 7-8 weeks when we found a cute little vacation apartment to rent.

The first Arcata augury happened yesterday when we “checked in” to our latest vacation apartment here (which is technically in Bayside, the small area that is next to or part of  Arcata – I’m not sure which. But I’ll call it Arcata to keep it simple. And alliterative.) Anyway, the husband of the couple that owns this place turned out to have known Peter Palmquist. Nice, eh?  I took that to be a positive sign.

Then, there were two more auspicious things this morning.  First, we beat the odds — weather-wise at least — when we awoke to a large rainstorm, even though there was only a 10% chance of that happening according to the online forecasts.  One of the weather sites actually said there was a chance of fog, but not rain.  Chris read that as we looked out at the rain outside the window. Only 10% chance? We got it!

No puddles near our door as a result of the rain, unfortunately, but there were a few nice raindrops:

After the rain, Arcata, CA

Then, the second thing his morning were the large spider webs that appeared overnight outside our door.  The one below was the most photogenic, since it was covered in raindrops, but there were at least two others nearby (not pictured) :

Raindrops on a Spider Web, Arcata, CA

BTW, that’s an illusion that the web as big as the tree tops. I mean, it was big, but not that big.  The illusion is created since the web was closer to me that the trees and I took the photo lining up the web with the trees beyond.

Anyway, I take spider webs to be a good sign since when we moved to Tübingen a few years ago, we were memorably greeted several mornings there by a series of enormous spider webs outside the door to our first apartment, and I like to think they brought us good luck there. For reference, you can read this old blog post about them.

So, although divining the meanings of the auguries is always a mystery — especially on a Monday — all the initial signs seem auspicious for our visit in Arcata.

Stay tuned…

And yes, I do realize today isn’t Monday, but I didn’t get the photos taken until yesterday, and you’ll see at the end why it’s nice to have photos in this post.

Anyway, you might assume that I’m posing this question because it is one that people are asking right now about  Chris and me. After all, it’s reasonable to wonder what the heck Chris and I are doing here in Santa Barbara.

So, why [did we decide to take our Plan G tour to] Santa Barbara? Well, the short answer is … there was no particular reason. Last December, when we spent just a single night here on our way to Northern California, it looked like a place we thought it would be fun to spend some time in.  Plus, there’s a good University library around here for Chris to use while he prepares some materials that are due in the fall (for an invited keynote speech and also an invited book chapter). Plus, there’s the ocean. Plus we found a great deal on a little 2 bedroom (!) cottage where we can stay until July 15th. Plus we know a few people that we will try to meet with in this area.  Plus, we get a chance to try life in the “American Riviera”, as Santa Barbara is sometimes called.

For all those rather random reasons, we’re here in Santa Barbara until July 15th.

And before you ask … no, we don’t know what’s coming after July 15th. As usual, we have no plan.

But I’ve actually just digressed away from the real topic of this post, since my question “Why Santa Barbara” was not about Chris and me;  it was originally something  I asked Chris about one of his ancestors who lived in Santa Barbara.

You see, Chris’ paternal grandmother’s relatives trace back to a guy named Peter Brinkerhoff. He was born and raised on the East Coast and started a family there.  But then at one point, he left the east and moved west to Santa Barbara, CA. Chris has been doing some research into the Brinkerhoffs, and so one of my questions for him has been “Why Santa Barbara? – i.e., Why did Peter Brinkerhoff decide to move to Santa Barbara in the 1800s? Gold fever? Or something else (since his move is in the late 1850s, which seems a bit late for gold fever).

Now to understand the following information, you’ll need to know that Chris has uncovered the fact that Peter Brinkerhoff (Chris’ direct ancestor) had a cousin named Samuel Brinkerhoff.

I’ll let Chris take over the story from here, from a write-up he did recently:

Why do we care about Samuel?

Well Samuel moved to Santa Barbara in 1852. There are a couple stories about how he came to be in Santa Barbara. In one, Samuel headed out to California from New York sometime after the discovery of gold in 1849. According to this account, he had “Gold Fever” and spent some time in Marysville (I think I remember visiting some other relative there when I was little). Samuel then headed south to Santa Barbara in 1852.

Another more exciting story has Dr. Brinkerhoff (Samuel was an M.D.) heading towards San Francisco for his health in 1852 when the steamship he was on made a stop in Santa Barbara. Not great timing, since there was a big gunfight going on at the time. Because he was a doctor, he tended to the wounded, but that caused him to miss the departure of the steamship. However, he liked the town and decided to stay.

Who knows, maybe both stories are true. In any case, Dr. Samuel B. Brinkerhoff became the first resident doctor in Santa Barbara, and soon became a Very Important Person. He, with others, funded a crucial road, built the first wharf, and founded a gas (light) company. Given his quick rise, and the fact that he was a doctor, I’m guessing that Samuel already had some money to start with, probably from his family.

So, when his cousin Peter has a rough patch (his first wife dies in 1855), maybe he decides to pull up stakes in Ohio (where there were also a lot of relatives) to get a new start by moving to join his better-off cousin, Samuel, in Santa Barbara. By 1858 Peter’s been in Santa Barbara long enough to fall in love with Elizabeth Jane Nidever, who he marries in 1858.

As I said, Samuel was a mover and a shaker, and there is a small street named after him, on land that he once owned. I saw that street today, and it’s pretty, with tall palm trees (not from Samuel’s time) and Victorian houses. All that was done after he died, though. His house is still standing, though, at the end of Brinkerhoff Ave.

— from Chris Culy’s email summary explaining the connection between Samuel and Peter Brinkerhoff

So, that’s Chris’ answer to the mystery about Peter and “Why Santa Barbara?”

BTW, as Chris mentions, Samuel’s house is still standing at one end of Brinkerhoff Avenue, or at least there is a nice house standing at the address given as Samuel’s in the records books that Chris used (it’s a private house and there’s no way to tell for sure without knocking on the door if the house was built in Samuel’s time):

Location of Samuel Brinkerhoff house, Santa Barbara

Sam’s place? (photo showing just the house)

The redwood tree in front definitely isn’t from Samuel’s time, though, as a plaque at the base of the tree says that it was planted in 1929.

Nowadays, that house isn’t actually on Brinkerhoff Avenue.  Rather Brinkerhoff avenue leads up to the house.  Hopefully the following photos will help orient you:

1. A panorama that shows the house and the street running in front of the old Brinkerhoff homestead; this street is NOT Brinkerhoff avenue.

Sam’s Place in context on street

In this photo, Brinkerhoff Avenue is out of camera range off to the right, as it comes in perpendicular to the house.

2. In the following photo, the street going off into the distance is the same street as in the first photo; the Brinkerhoff house is out of camera range off to the left. You can see the start of Brinkerhoff Avenue (marked by the street sign) in the middle of the photo.  Brinkerhoff Avenue itself runs off to the right, following the direction of the one way sign.

The start of Brinkerhoff Avenue

3. In the next image, you can see the palm trees that currently line Brinkerhoff Avenue. Again, to orient you, the house is behind me from where I’m standing as I’m looking down Brinkerhoff Avenue.

Brinkerhoff Avenue, Santa Barbara, CA

There you have it – in less than a week Chris has tracked down several ancestors, traced a bit of their stories, located an old ancestral homestead along with  a whole street named for one of them.

So when anyone asks, “Why is Santa Barbara a stop on your Plan G Tour?,” I guess I’ll just reply, “Well, why not?

We arrived late in the afternoon, having driven down from Eugene, Oregon (where we’d spent the previous night). We stayed at the Curly Redwood Lodge, which is unique in that it was built from a single redwood tree. That fact is interesting, even if the architecture was pretty standard American motel style, but it was a comfortable place, and a good value, so I recommend checking it out if you have the chance.

Best of all,  it is right across from the working fishing harbor. As the sun sank slowly in the (north)west — literally — Chris and I walked over and spotted some seals playing in the water next to the boats. Fun!

The photos I snapped at that moment don’t show the seals, though. Just the sunset. But that was also fun.

Enjoy.

Crescent City Harbour, May 25, 2016

Sunset at the harbor, Crescent City, May 25, 2016

Sunset for the birds

Anyway, we were in Orland, CA earlier this month. While I didn’t get a photo of the town, we did visit a nearby reservoir at sunset, where there was water and some interesting trees.

Sunset over the Reservoir

Tree at Sunset

This next one is a little bit of a trick, in that the water is made bluer here by making the photo into a cyanotype black and white print, which tints it blue, and emphasizes the shape of the tree:

At the water’s edge

Now, this last photo has nothing to do with the reservoir, but it was also taken in Orland. I took it by the pool that was behind the charming house we were staying in:

At the Pool

Actually, it a photo of the pool – or more specifically, things reflected in the pool.

Except some of the things are really in the pool, and not part of the reflection.  BTW, the image is turned upside-down;  but then, I’m sure you already guessed that.

Due to an extraordinarily lucky turn of events today, we wound up switching rooms, winding up across the hall from our original room. The first room had a roll-away bed (in addition to a regular bed), which someone wanted.  Our new room has no roll-away bed — but it has this:

View from our Berkeley City Club room

Yes, that was taken from a window in our new room. That photo is straight from the camera, and taken with the window frame deliberately included to show that it’s the view from our hotel room window. Off in the distance, that’s the San Francisco skyline to the left, and the Golden Gate Bridge to the right. Here’s a bit more “closeup”:

Sun Setting over San Francisco

Golden Gate Bridge at Sunset

We’re scheduled to be in this room until Sunday.  I’m guessing I’ll have at least one or two more photos to show you before too long.   In the meantime,  here’ a link to a webcam in Berkeley that,  at the right time of day, and when the weather is clear, also gives you a good view of the area looking toward the Golden Gate Bridge.

Enjoy.

Breaking Through!

I loved the way the shape of the trees takes on the curve of the cobblestones, seeming to break free from the cobblestones in order to move over into free space on the right.  It’s not a perfect illusion, but not too shabby for a reflection in a puddle.

The photo is not only turned upside-down, but also heavily cropped. The original is below.  I like it both  for the puddle as well as for the shadow of my hand in the lower-left. You can see my finger perfectly positioned to press the button on my cell phone camera. I guess that’s the modern silhouette of a photographer. Too funny.

The Puddle Photographer and her puddle

The theme of our California trip so far is really reconnecting with old friends, starting with Chula Vista, continuing in Santa Barbara, and then getting into high gear here in the Bay Area,  as we used to live around here. We lived here for over 5 years, in fact — but it’s now been more than twice that, nearly 11 years, since we moved away.

Yikes – can it really have been that long?!

The answer is yes, it can. Which means there’s a reason why other than our friends things around here seem kind of familiar, and yet not so much.   There’s been a lot of construction and changes to existing buildings in the intervening years, and of course a lot of restaurants have changed or gone away completely.  The traffic has gotten worse, and remembering the tricks from 11 years ago to navigating around isn’t alway easy, let alone understanding some of the new traffic patterns.  However, today I did manage to remember (or at least make an educated guess about)  a trick to avoid one of the most congested streets.  Which I couldn’t have done in a totally new place, I guess, so somehow having lived here once upon a time might help.

Yesterday we visited downtown Palo Alto, in order to visit an old haunt, the Stanford Theatre. It’s a refurbished movie palace that for many years has run programs with movies from the golden age of Hollywood. We went regularly when we lived in the area years ago, and it’s fun to see that it’s still in business.  One highlight is hearing the organ played before and after each regular movie, but sometimes they also have silent movies shown with a live musical accompaniment performed on  the organ. That’s what was on the bill on Sunday, with organist Dennis James at the “Mighty Wurlitzer.”  Just like when we’d come years ago,  Mr. James had written a new music score to go with the movie. He’s still quite the master of it; I am always impressed at how he’s able to convey so many moods via his musical arrangements on that organ.

It was a fun afternoon, but in a way a bit odd, as the theatre was the one thing that seemed the most familiar.  The rest of downtown has changed quite a bit and seems very different from when we lived here.  Seeing an old town through new eyes, while going to see an old silent movie with a new musical score.  I’m not sure there’s really any conclusion to be drawn from that, but FWIW, we did both of those things yesterday afternoon in downtown Palo Alto.  

We stopped in Carlsbad, CA for lunch in a little sandwich local sandwich shop that was called  “Board and Brew”. The sandwiches there were made while you waited, and having a non-fast-food chain (i.e. Subway) lunch while on the road was a welcome change. The “Brew” in the name predictably referred to beer (which we didn’t have), but the “Board” was not as obvious until we stepped inside; then it became clear that the “board” in question was of the skateboard/snowboard variety.  We raised the average age in the place by quite a bit while we were there, and also acquired a little bit of board lingo while we were there. You see, the menu listed two items listed under a section labelled “Groms”: there was a grilled cheese on sourdough, and a quesadilla. Both had melted cheese, but that seemed unlikely to be the reason they were grouped together.  Anyway, I ordered the grilled cheese, which was tasty.

When we got to the hotel in Chula Vista,  I did an Internet search for “Grom”, and here’s the definition I found on Definitions.net:

• grom (Noun)

  A young surfer, wakeskater, wakeboarder, snowboarder, skimboarder, skateboarder, or kiteboarder.

  They were having this contest for grommets. The waves were micro. Even the groms were disgusted.

Too funny. Just call me a kid at heart, I guess, since I ordered from the children’s menu.  

Anyway, although we didn’t have a chance to stop and take a photo of the view today, it seems appropriate to mark the fact that our Plan G Road Trip has now officially made it from coast-to-coast. Back in October, it was the Atlantic Ocean that we saw from our vacation apartment in Florida before we set out on the road. Here’s a view of that ocean at sunset, taken while sitting at a table at our favorite little quick-dinner spot by Melbourne Beach:

Sunset over the Atlantic, October 2015

Here in California, of course, it’s the Pacific Ocean you spot when you have an ocean view. Here’s another version of that sunset photo I posted yesterday, but with the additional note that it’s the Pacific Ocean you’re seeing under those sun beams:

Sunset over the Pacific, December 2015

We’ll be in California for the rest of the year, but we’re not staying too long in Southern California. Tomorrow, we start heading north. Stay tuned.