Where to spend August

You can go anywhere in the world in April and May. (Springtime in Paris!) But where do you go in August, when everyone in Italy is on vacation, Europe is overrun with Americans, and it’s broiling almost everywhere?

Eureka, California, is your answer. Summer didn’t really arrive until around the Fourth of July, and now that it’s August, every day is glorious, with bright sun and temperatures peaking a bit over 70°. There is always breeze off the ocean. As soon as the sun goes down, temperatures drop. You can open your windows and cool your surroundings without any air conditioning. It may be misty in the morning, but that gives you a chance to enjoy your coffee and get a start on the day.

Wine country is hot at this time of year, but it is not too far from Eureka. You can drive out during the day, taste some excellent wine, and retreat to cool weather. You can purchase fresh fish from a boat moored at Woodley Island and watch the seals beg for scraps.

At the edge of town, you can walk along nearly deserted beaches, hike among the redwoods, or set up your lawn chairs and cooler at a swimming hole along one of the rivers. I always recall August as empty of activities, but not here. There are festivals every weekend, farmers markets, night markets, and the Victorian main street of Ferndale to visit.

Clockwise from upper L: Swimming along the Eel River; a beachcombing trophy (No, I didn’t bring it home); Oyster farming basket that got loose during a storm; tree trunk full of woodpecker holes.

The Humboldt County Fair is this week, if you’d like to see livestock and eat funnel cakes. We went to a preview of the horticultural building with the Garden Club, then returned to see the animals and I even went on a ride.

Clockwise from upper left: Lyra on the climbing wall, the Zipper, getting off the Zipper, specialty chicken, guinea pig in a sleeping bag.

If you are not in the mood for the Humboldt County Fair, there’s music. The SoHum Girls played at one of the concerts at the Humboldt Botanical Garden (photo in the banner of this post) or the Trinity Alps Chamber Music Festival. The chamber music was excellent. We saw them last month (Chamber Music) and looked forward to their second swing through our area. This time the setting was the most beautiful church imaginable, set at the edge of the woods. Who needs stained glass when there’s a view of redwoods from every window?

Edwin Huizinga playing Chaconne from Violin Partita in D Minor by J.S. Bach at the Arcata Lutheran Church

In August, there are wild blackberries, fruit of the invasive Himalayan blackberry, a prickly weed that overtakes anything it can. The berries are full of seeds, too, but they are abundant. Jonathan and I can pick enough for jam or sorbet in 30 minutes or less. After sorting through the berries to remove twigs and leaves, we cook the berries for about ten minutes and then strain the pulp. To make sorbet, all I add is a cup of water, a cup of sugar, and the juice of a lime. Every hour I stir the mix, and after 2-3 hours, I whip it in the mixer for a minute or so and put the resulting sorbet in the freezer.

There’s a terrible irony to these lovely surroundings. While those of us in Eureka enjoy perfect weather, most places around us are hot. A heat wave is engulfing California and Oregon. Portland, more than 400 miles north of us, has had highs over 100°. Fires are igniting from lightning strikes in the mountains east of us, and much of the rest of California is hot, as well. This week it also poured rain in Southern California as the tail of the first hurricane to make landfall since 1850 swirled up the Sea of Cortez and through downtown LA. In Eureka, we are a small green spot on the weather map.