January 4, 2025
The Return of the Raven, day 4
To Eureka
Andrea and I were up and packed and ready for breakfast but no one else was. There is nothing that can be done in this situation except now that I think about it I could have gone outside to pick up sticks until our hosts were up. Instead I watched mist move among the trees in ravines down below. Mei Mei came downstairs and helped me watch what was going on outside. Eventually our hosts emerged and fixed a wonderful breakfast.
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Then we absolutely had to see Gregg's studio and the rest of the large building a short distance from the house. We were astonished when he opened the garage door to his studio. Gregg loves musical instruments and through years of traveling the world he has collected many. He has a regular sound and recording studio there and he showed us several of his instruments and told the stories of how he acquired them. He also demonstrated playing several of them.
The rest of the building has a large woodworking studio and another section has a pool table, a ping pong table and other toys. Upstairs are two or three huge office spaces. It was all as impressive as the house and we could have explored the building all day. But we had to get going even though we hadn't picked up any sticks. The sticks were everywhere and being a gardener who likes things cleaned up it bugged me that the yard was such a mess. The picnic table had been completely crushed by a large limb that came down in one of the storms. It was my own fault I hadn't done any work on the sticks. I don't know how many times I told Gregg and Bo that I'd work at it, although I don't think they ever took me seriously.
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It wasn't until we put our bags in the Raven that we realized something was different about him. He had fallen in love! He had been with the sweet young 2019 Golf next to him in the garage for two days AND two nights. It was obvious what had been going on - all those tire marks! In fact he didn't want to leave. When I started him up he told me that his oil needed to be changed immediately and he was also complaining that his right front tire needed some air. I ignored him. Stalling tactics is all they were. But it was quite apparent that Raven was in love with the shiny petite thing he had been with. It's shocking what A Raven gets into when his parents are in the next state! There was nothing we could do though, we had to break them up. We were already leaving way later than we had intended so I aimed us at the steep, stick-covered driveway and we flew down it faster than I intended. The Raven was angry.
We drove over to Hwy. 1 and commenced to turn the steering wheel constantly, tightly all afternoon. Tight little turns and steep little hills are what Hwy 1 is all about as well as Monterey cypress trees lining the route. And at times we got a great view of the ocean. No matter how slow it is Hwy. 1 is an amazing road in California. There are many places to stop and spend some time but we were late so it was just hairpin turns for hours, enjoyable, but tight. Our destination was the Comfort Inn in Eureka about 240 miles north. The constant banking into turn after turn seemed to calm the Raven.
As it was getting dark, Hwy 1, which had been following the beach, was forced to go inland due to a huge tall rock cliff, impenetrable and impossible for a road to go through it. It was a right angle turn and then up and up into deep, dark forest. The newly-paved, narrow road climbed and then dropped only to climb again and the entire 27 miles over to Hwy. 101 was filled with tight turns. The road had been recently resurfaced with a smooth-as-butter layer of asphalt. The lines were bright against the new black asphalt and our headlights illuminated them so much that they were a bit hypnotic, maybe not a good thing while driving. Andrea was clutching her door handle when the ravine dropped off precipitously on her side. The road was very narrow and I felt like I was in a video game trying to keep the car completely between the lines. The Raven was enjoying it. What a great handling car, I thought. We never got over 25 mph those 27 miles.
Now, one might think that driving hypnotically for an hour on fresh black asphalt with no other cars and thick black forest all around and all I had to do was stay between the lines, that one might start thinking about a nudge word. But no, not me. The driving was so intense it was about the same as if I was in deep conversation with a small group of people and there were no awkward silences.
At about the 27 mile mark we merged into Hwy. 101 which is a freeway comparatively. We hadn't intended to do any night driving on our trip but Eureka was not far.
The guy at the front desk of the Comfort Inn was great. We asked him how safe it was to leave the bikes in the car and he immediately understood our concern. He had us park in the first slot where he could see the car all night. He also gave us the room right next to the car. He had been in some sort of law enforcement job and detested property thieves. When I saw him say "detest" through clenched teeth I knew we didn't have to bring the bikes into the room. My worries evaporated until we ate at the Chinese/American restaurant, Chin's, next door!
Our mission for this trip was to get the Raven, Roddy and the Bike Friday back to Portland safely. My biggest fear was if Scott and Rachael's bikes would get stolen. If that were to happen then it would have to be a Thelma and Louise off a cliff in the Raven into the Pacific. The Raven would have found out he couldn't really fly but he wouldn't have minded the drop because we had taken him away from his true love. That guy at the front desk really saved everything though, except he had been the one who told us the food at Chin's was really great.
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