We stayed for three nights after arriving from the US. On previous trips, we have tended to stay overnight, shop, and head north out of town. This time, we’ve had some free time while waiting for people to get back to us, and we’ve done a little bit of walking around the neighborhood.
Miraflores, the area where we stay in Lima, has undergone tremendous changes over the past twenty years. Large family homes, or casonas, were the principal houses. Some of these were turned into small hotels, like the Senorial, where we stay, then adjacent houses were added. Next, old houses were knocked down to make space for six-eight story apartment buildings. Along the cliffs by the sea, fifteen stories has become common, while the old casonas are largely gone. There is more housing, and there are more hotels, but the graceful curves of creative architecture are also gone. We saw a doorway to nowhere that turns out to be the entrance to an older house now surrounded by a mature garden.
(L-R) Sunset in Lima, doorway to nowhere, saffron finch
One of Lima’s great achievements of the past twenty years is the extension of the shore at the base of the cliffs into the sea to create space for a highway and a coastline park. Surfers occupy the waters off Miraflores, and there are miles of parks and playing fields extending along the edge of the city. Pedestrian bridges descend from the cliffs and over the highway, and there is parking. It’s a project worthy of Robert Moses, reshaper of New York, and we often wonder how it came about in a city composed of 50 districts with competing agendas.
(L-R) Pier with restaurant La Rosa Nautica, waves and surfers, surfers closeup
We did not visit any museums or famous sites in Lima, but we did have some excellent meals. We always like Punta Azul, a seafood restaurant on Cantuarias in Miraflores. Their tiradito is delicious (Raw fish, like ceviche). We had three sauces, purple olive, rocoto (chili), and Parmesan, and there are other options. Their risotto Punta Azul with squid ink, was also delicious. The restaurant is always crowded at lunch time, but not usually at dinner. At one pm, there was a long line, but at 7 pm, we had our choice of tables.
The next night we tried for sushi, but after being seated and ignored for ten minutes we left, uncertain of where to go next. Fortunately, we looked at Amore, next door, and gave it a try. This restaurant is a block from the N end of Parque Kennedy, just around the side of the Saga Falabella department store. We shared pasta with oxtail ragout, and “drunken” arroz con pato (duck fried rice with duck leg cooked in beer), both very good. Lima is full of good restaurants.
Covid infections are fewer in Peru than the US, and more people wear masks on the street. Masks are required at most indoor localities, restaurants, stores, even the markets. Lots of people are on the streets.
The next day, we slipped back into our regular mold, visited the Surquillo market, where we buy Uruguayan parmesan cheese (excellent!), nuts, and spices. Flags are for sale everywhere. Fiestas Patrias, the national day of Peru, is July 28, and municipalities can require homeowners to display the flag. We went on to the supermarket, then headed for Barranca, where our flag is up for the next couple of weeks.
For a different view: I have followed the blog of a Canadian couple, Les Voyages de Suzanne & Pierre for several years. They travel widely and they take sublime photos. In June 2022, they visited Peru, and I have been enjoying their take on Lima and the other places they visited. I urge you to take a look at their blog for another perspective.
I was not looking forward to our trip to Peru. We have been enjoying Eureka, and it is quite a slog to Peru from there.
And yet.
Downtown Los Angeles in light smog (Wikimedia Commons)
LAX (Internet photo)
Flying into Los Angeles we paralleled the gorgeous coast for a while, crossed immense tracts of single family houses, skirted the skyscrapers of downtown, and landed among the warehouses and hangars that turn the ground into a cement checkerboard. It’s an impressive cityscape. We overnighted near the airport, watching a corner of sunset from the rooftop dining area.
Most of the next day was our transit to Miami. In the early evening, flying up out of Miami toward South America, we crossed spectacular blue-green water streaked with sandbars pointing offshore. Where the sandbars end and the water deepens, clusters of tiny white sport fishing boats perch on the dark surface below me, like fluff from dandelions on a pond.
Clouds over Cuba (Internet photo)
The flight crosses Cuba, where I see late afternoon storms forming under cumulous clouds that are impossibly high billows of white, so much taller from a plane than from the ground. I could see the different sides of a mountain range, one drier, one greener from the prevailing winds carrying rain.
These sights are an inspiration. The immensity of nature, the power of air and water, the beauty of patterns that form on their own from these forces at work, are the miracles of life.
We arrive in Lima at 10 pm, speed through immigration and customs and are in bed at the hotel by 11:30 pm, as good an outcome as possible. The next morning on my way to breakfast I see one of the plants in the meticulously kept garden has sent out new leaves of shiny yellow in startling contrast to the dark maroon red they will become. Nature is full of surprises.
Hotel Senorial, Lima, Peru
I am amazed and delighted by my ability to see these things, to travel in planes and look out the window, and to have the time to think about the wonders around me.
We drive to Santa Rosa once a month so that I can see a retina specialist. On our first visit last month, we drove up and back in the same day. Three and a half hours to get there, a two hour appointment, and three and a half hours home. It was a long and tiring visit. This month, we decided to drive to Santa Rosa on one day, and return on the next. This gave us the chance to rest between drives, and we could have a nice dinner in honor of my birthday, which fell on the day of my appointment.
Lambretta scooters
The result was very pleasant. We stayed overnight at the Sandman Motel, and it has a pool. Though the weather has been overcast and cool in Eureka, it was in the mid-80s in Santa Rosa, and I was able to go for a swim after we arrived. There were a lot of little scooters parked in the lot, so many that we thought the motel rented them to guests for trips around town. On my way to the pool, I asked a man whether the scooters were for something special, and he told me about the annual Lambretta Jamboree. Owners of vintage versions of this Italian-made scooter (smaller than a Vespa), gather for a weekend celebration and this year the Sandman was hosting. We appear to have gotten a reservation by miraculous means, as the hotel was completely sold out for the weekend. My informant had come all the way from Italy to be part of the event, borrowing a Lambretta from a friend in California for the events.
We left the party at the motel and went into Santa Rosa to do some wine tasting. We stopped at 4th Street Cellars, where Jonathan had a glass of wine, and I tasted Bambury Collection white and rosé, all very good. From there, we went a few blocks to Ca’Bianco. This restaurant began as a white house in what is locally called Victorian style. There are some lovely details of metal work, stained glass, and tiled floors. The most attractive feature, though was the garden, with trees, mature plants, and lots of white flowers including jasmine and roses. The plants are so tall that they screen many of the tables from one another, so dining outdoors is a bit like having your own little salon. It was lovely, and the air was faintly scented with flowers. Dinner was good, though perhaps not earth-shaking, and we enjoyed our surroundings most of all. We arrived back at the motel to find the Lambretta Jamboree well underway.
The Jamboree website told us about the many events, mostly group excursions into the hills or down to the coast. These took place every day and were graded from ‘easy’, 2-3 hours, to ‘difficult’ 6-7 hours. There were t-shirts and hats, barbecue grills and lots of beer. We were a bit concerned that the festivities would go on all night, based on our one previous experience with a group event at a motel.
[In the late summer of 1985, we drove from our home in Santa Fe to San Diego for a celebration of my parents 40th wedding anniversary. Amanda was tiny, and the three of us made the trip in our first family car, a Toyota sedan. We drove all day, heading for the California border, and decided to stop for the night in Yuma, AZ. Yuma being a pretty out of the way place, we didn’t make a hotel reservation, but stopped in at the first motel we came to that looked promising. There was no room, so we kept going. After the fourth motel, we began to get worried. It was late and we were tired.
At our next stop, we explained that we had to get going again early and were just looking for a short stay. Somehow, we got a room, and on the way in we asked why all the hotels in Yuma were full that night. The clerk looked at us with surprise (how could we not know this), and told us it was the first day of dove-hunting season. People had gone out all day and were now back at the motel setting up grills, cleaning and plucking birds, and having a late night cookout with the first catch of the season.
Feathers eddied around our feet as we carried Amanda and all her gear up to the room and got settled. No one told the hunters, however. The pool deck and the parking lot were lined with barbecues glowing red, people sitting in lawn chairs chatting and drinking. The clerk had mentioned that they’d all be going out to hunt again at 4 am. I figured they’d need some sleep in the meantime, but I was wrong. Just about the time it quieted down enough for us to fall asleep, the alarms began to go off, there was a general stampede, doors slamming, engines racing, and the crowd left to go hunting.
There was still a small snowdrift of feathers around the parked cars when we left later that morning.]
You can imagine why a similar festival all these years later might make us wary, but we had no cause for concern. The entire Lambretta group seems to have turned in around 10 pm, and the music and carousing dissipated until morning.
My appointment was early, and I was finished in record time, 45 minutes, including an injection. I guess that’s the advantage of being a known patient. I often see a new doctor every month, so I’m accustomed to the entire sequence: history, eye exam, pressure, dilation, OCT, consultation, prep, injection. We skipped several of these steps, and off I went, ready to enjoy the trip home. My eyes didn’t itch or hurt, they weren’t dilated, and the day was young.
We decided to stop in Healdsburg, just ten miles down the road toward Eureka, to walk around the plaza and see what it looked like. These days the town is a wine destination, with tasting rooms on every block along with hotels, restaurants, and boutiques. There were some lovely things in the windows, and Jonathan enjoyed the cookware store. We asked a man holding a nice looking pastry where it came from, and he directed us to Quail & Condor, a very fine pastry shop. It was late morning and a lot of the pastry was sold out, so we’ll have to stop in earlier next time. After our stroll, it was time to head back to Eureka. We drove through 80 degree weather most of the trip, then descended into the mist as we approached the coast, arriving home again by about 3:30 pm to temperatures in the 60s .
There is more to see in Santa Rosa and surroundings. Countless wineries, more small towns, and in a few weeks, the wild blackberries will ripen, and there will be berry-picking for anyone who would like some jam or a tasty fruit dessert. We will miss some of this, but we’ll be back for another visit.
The more you travel outside the US, the more you find elements of other countries here at home.
This week, as the rest of the country stayed very warm, Eureka was largely overcast and quite cool, with temperatures in the 50s and 60s. The sun came out occasionally in the afternoon, but it was jacket weather. It reminded us both of Ireland.
Plants love to be under the mist. Like Ireland, there are bushes entirely covered with primroses, all kinds of flowers in gardens, and the (invasive) blackberries will be ripe in a week or two. This is similar to our impression of Dingle, Ireland, where we made blackberry jam and took lots of long walks.
The beach here is similar to Ireland, as well. Today we went to Manila Dunes, where in a light mist, there were only a few other people in the distance. We walked and beach combed, not finding much other than a beach toy and a big clam shell. No matter, it was good to be outside enjoying the day.
We’ve just finished our first full month in Eureka, and we like it here. Our rental home is comfortable, the neighborhood is interesting, and definitely on an upswing. We’ve met a couple of the neighbors, and are taking walks to get the lay of the land. It will take some time for us to become part of the community.
We are among the ever-smaller group of people who have never had Covid. We still wear masks when indoors, and we avoid crowds, apart from the farmers market. Our Audubon walk was enjoyable, and we’ll keep going out with them, but we don’t envision much indoor fun for a while yet.
We look forward to getting more settled and exploring more of the coast. We’re already getting used to ignoring the rain unless its a downpour.
One constant for us is to walk along as much of the shore as we can, wherever we are. California is an excellent place for this, as the law strongly protects public access to the shore. Some landowners have tried to oppose this system, but all they’ve done is unloaded some of their excess cash in pursuit of things that are not theirs (Hello, David Geffen).
In northern California, there are lots of new places for us to visit. The only limit to how much of the shore we see is how long we can keep walking. We had to make a stop at the Arcata-Eureka Airport. I looked for a place nearby for a walk and found Letz Ave., right across from the airport turnoff. We drove north as far as it went, then parked. The Hammond Trail passes by the parking area and we headed north past another parking spot, Vista Point, where you can see out over the mouth of the Mad River. The river has worn a channel parallel to the shore for over three miles before making its way to the ocean, creating a narrow island. The island’s end at the river mouth is quite remote. We could see across the narrow span of water, but it’s only accessible from far to the south. The tip of the peninsula is quiet, serene, and empty, except for the seals.
Harbor seals at the mouth of the Mad River
The beach was lined with harbor seals! More than 100, casually hauled out, with a few more swimming around nearby. With their tiny rear flippers, these seals move like inchworms, wiggling up onto the beach, and eventually waggling back into the water. Their motion is called “galumphing.” (Not kidding.) People stop to get a view of the shore and the animals. From where we parked, a gentle downhill trail led us all the way to the beach opposite the seals, the far south end of Crab Beach.
We could see the seals just across the river mouth, but they stayed on their side and avoided our side. Once we headed up the beach we were surprised by the huge amount of driftwood that has piled up. Currents must bring it in during storms and on high tides, as a lot of the tree trunks were very large, and perched well above the normal high tide line. It must be quite something to see during a winter storm–from a safe distance.
At the far south end of Clam Beach
We strolled up the beach looking for shells and beach glass, picking up a large clam shell to use as a soap dish, driftwood sticks for our jenga pile, and our biggest sand dollar thus far. We looked at the seals for a while, watching them do nothing, and occasionally galumph their way in and out of the water. With almost no human company on an overcast day, we had another beautiful walk.
Flicker
A small stand of trees leans across part of the path, blown by the constant wind into a permanent arc. On the way back to the car, it provided excellent birdwatching: an osprey overhead, a yellow warbler and a wrentit in the trees, and down below us, like a chicken on a nest, a flicker sat in the middle of the path.
We were invited to meet my sister and her partner in Ashland, OR and take in a few plays at the well-known Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Jonathan found us a hotel room and I bought tickets to three of the pieces they were going to, without thinking too much about it. One night we’d see The Tempest, so there was Shakespeare involved, and we’d also see a musical that I’d heard of, Once on This Island, and a new play, Revenge Song. I had some doubts about this last one, but Paula was going and the festival is supposed to be full of interesting works, so I took the plunge.
The drive to Ashland was long (5 hrs including stops) but pretty, through the redwoods. After an hour at the hotel with our feet up, we headed off to an early dinner at Lark’s Home Kitchen in the Ashland Springs Hotel, the oldest and most elegant of local choices. We met Paula and Wayne, and their friends Nora and Oscar. Paula had brought two bottles of wine for us to sample, as her wine cellar at home in Portland is quite good and this was a festive occasion. The food was excellent, Jonathan’s spicy lamb spread (nduja), and my clams were delicious, as was the wine. We headed off to the play in good spirits.
Revenge Sont, OSF
The Elizabethan theater is largely in the open, a replica of the Shakespearean theaters of England. We were warned to wear warm clothing and bring rain gear, and we needed it. Our seats were under cover, but it had drizzled most of the day and I was glad to be dry. The play started with an ear-splitting crash of rock music, vastly over-amplified, and that set the tone of the evening. The story was vague, and the production values disappointingly low. It was as though we’d come to One Act night at the local high school. Painfully loud electric guitar chords punctuated some of the action, making us despise every looming, obvious plot twist. We wondered what the organizers of the festival were thinking when they added this work to the schedule. The strange thing about Revenge Song is that audience opinion was evenly divided. One half clapped loudly, cheered, and (I understand) gave it a standing ovation at the end. The other half of the audience, ourselves included, left at intermission, thoroughly fed up.
The next morning, we discovered Remix Coffee Shop and had delicious coffee and the crispiest croissants this side of Paris. We returned every morning that we stayed in Ashland. We whiled away the morning, then set out on the day’s adventure, a wine-tasting at Cowhorn Winery, where Paula has a subscription and would pick up her quarterly allotment of wine after our tastes. Paula’s membership provided two free tastings that Nora and I used, while Paula, Wayne, and Jonathan had what are called pairings, 3 oz pours of each of the four wines on the tasting list, and a wood-fired pizza into the bargain. Our tasting began at 1:30 pm, so the pizza was both well-timed and delicious. Cowhorn rosé is excellent, and we also tasted their Spiral white blend, a grenache, and a pinot noir. We chatted and sipped. This was not a serious ‘spit and dissect’ kind of wine tasting but a relaxed ‘sip and discuss’ that made a delightful afternoon.
We had another early dinner and 8 pm curtain time, getting back to the hotel for a short rest between events. Dinner at 5 pm was at another excellent local restaurant, Peerless, in the Peerless Hotel. Halibut and soba noodles, and buckwheat noodles with lamb were two of our favorite entrees, and we drank more delicious Oregon wine.
Prospero, The Tempest, OSF
The play was The Tempest, again in the Elizabethan theater, and raining. The performance was not cancelled because the rain didn’t actually prevent the actors from working, though I imagine it made them very cold. Everyone in the audience cringed for poor Miranda, “unconscious” in a puddle on the stage, with rain coming down on her face. Once again, our seats were under the edge of the roof and we did not get wet. A contingent of die-hards in plastic ponchos sat out in the on-and-off rain for the entire performance. I think it’s a personal challenge to some.
Either the diction of the actors improved as they froze, or we became more accustomed to their speech patterns, but the second act seemed easier to understand than Act 1. It would have helped to have a synopsis of scenes in the program. All of us have read The Tempest at some point, but we did not recall all the twists and turns of the plot. Between that and hearing aids, it was often difficult to follow the action. Two nights in a row we returned home wondering whether we’d made a mistake. We’d heard so many good things about the festival.
Once on This Island, OSF
It seemed fortunate that our final event, the musical Once On This Island, was in the Bowman Theater, indoors and climate controlled. The play is a New World version of The Little Mermaid, set in Haiti. The plot paralleled the traditional Hans Christian Anderson story until the end, when the woman dies and the gods take her into the sea. That much is in keeping with the original tale, but Once on This Island has her come back from the ocean as a tree, which makes a new plot twist, “and the tree grew up right where the gates joined so they could never be closed against anyone ever again,” a successful tearjerker, it defied all logic as a plot. (As a tree, she watches over the lover that spurned her, his wife, and their descendants. Why would she want to do that?)
For us, the high points of the weekend were the company, food and drink, singing and dancing. We had a bit of time to stroll the main street of Ashland and look in some of the stores. There are bookstores, a nature shop, and a store with native art including some nice southwestern silver and turquoise jewelry. I bought yet another ring and am quite content.
About Attending the Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Travel to the Festival: There are easier ways to get to the festival than the one we took. It’s about a five hour trip from Eureka to Ashland, three hours of driving on winding roads through gorgeous redwood forests, an hour of high speed highway, two pit stops, and a number of waits at road construction in far northern California, including the notorious Last Chance Grade. Last Chance is a spot where the highway has fallen into the ocean too many times, and the highway department is faced with trying to rebuild a roadway between a vertical rock face and the sea. A bit like Big Sur, popular sentiment wants the road rebuilt in its current location despite logic that points inland to safer and more durable routes. There are four or five places where construction creates single lane traffic. A relaxed attitude and flexible timetable are essential to enjoying this route.
Lodging at the Festival: Many people make a vacation of the festival, staying several days, seeing one or even two performances each day, and book the most elegant, charming, or distinctive accommodations well in advance. Those of us who decide to visit two weeks beforehand end up in the adequate but uninspired Holiday Inn. It was reasonably comfortable, but with post-Covid amenities such as daily housekeeping by request only, and boxed breakfast items. Paula and Wayne waited downstairs for us between events one afternoon and assured me that it was the most uncomfortable lobby in existence, along with no cell or wifi service they could detect.
Paula and Wayne stayed in their RV at the Ashland Creekside RV park. They have a beautiful Airstream motorhome, and Airstreams often receive favorable treatment in such places. A number were in evidence at their stop in Ashland, on their way to some Airstream roundup elsewhere. Many had the nicer spots, and in frustration at their cramped location, Paula asked them how long ago they had booked their spot. After all, she made her reservation back in March. The others–booked their June spots last November.
If you want to make the Oregon Shakespeare Festival an unforgettable experience, book carefully, and ideally, months in advance. For a spontaneous visit, I recommend a day trip and a single performance.
Booking your Tickets: It was easy to purchase seats on line, and the theaters are not large; I believe the largest seats 600. That means that even when you purchase seats in the last row on the side, you will still have a good view. We did need both a photo ID and proof of vaccination including booster in order to enter.
It is obvious that I should have considered the shows on offer more carefully, and done some reading prior to booking. I suggest you don’t repeat my mistake. Even for Shakespeare, unless you are quite familiar with the play, a scene by scene synopsis to read before, during, and at intermission, might be handy. Read reviews of the plays, if there are any.
Attending the Performance: Assuming one of the plays you plan to see will be held in the open air theater, think about how you’d feel in the cold and rain, or in high heat and humidity. When you book your tickets, you have the option to select seats that are under the various overhangs, which helps in case of rain. We didn’t have significant wind, which might change that.
I was surprised by Paula’s counsel to forget about dressing up, and dress for warmth, and to have both something to sit on and wrap up in. I was glad I paid attention to her advice. I was comfortable both nights, even the rainy night, in my hiking boots and wool socks, jeans, various layers, raincoat, hat, hood, shawl and fuzzy throw blanket. Not exactly a LBD and pearls, but effective.
Last year at this time, Ashland was under the Heat Dome, and theatergoers had to cope with temperatures over 100 F. Which would bother you more, outdoor theater in stifling heat, or drizzling cold rain? I decided I was fine with the cool weather and rain. I might even visit again.
We spent October 2020 in Eureka, CA, and moved on to Monterey after that. What brought us back now is our impending grandchild and her parents. That, and Jonathan and I can’t seem to find a way to live together comfortably in hot weather.
Eureka, in far northern California, has very little snow in the winter (annual average snowfall, 1″), quite a bit of rain (annual average rainfall, 46″), and cool summer weather when temperatures rarely top 75o F. How did the two of us who have been chasing summer for seven years, traveling from one warm region to another, always choosing the desert over the garden, end up in a cool place?
I loved all the hot places: the coast of Colombia, Aruba, northern Peru, Darwin Australia, but each of these houses were on the beach or had a swimming pool. In principle, though, I don’t want to own a pool and handle the upkeep. In the US, where air conditioning is widely available, we don’t have to tolerate blistering temperatures, and theoretically we could live anywhere. That’s how we ended up in Charleston, SC in September 2019. We met some lovely people there, and enjoyed our walks, beachcombing, and bird watching, but the heat and humidity created a problem. For Jonathan to keep from dripping sweat on the furniture, the temperature had to be kept at a level that required me to wear a sweater and fingerless gloves.
Where we have found middle ground is in places that don’t require frequent use of air conditioning. We enjoyed our months in Monterey, CA for that reason and now we’re going to give Eureka another try. We’d become completely unaccustomed to rain when we first visited, but the drought that afflicts the entire western US, especially California, is not as bad in this area because there is rain. We feel growing appreciation for water that falls from the sky free of charge, and I will purchase rain pants for walking.
I am enjoying life in a place where almost no one uses or even has A/C. I can open my windows and let the cool air in, and yet I can count on pleasant weather to go for a walk most days.
Unless it’s raining.
The last time we were here we decided against staying because of the regional shortage of health care personnel. We are giving it another try in hopes we can make it work with a bit more effort and greater lead time in making appointments. I have high hopes. As of January 2022, Humboldt State University became Cal Poly Humboldt, adding a dozen new programs in the coming year alone, and doubling enrollment over the next seven year, supported by more than $400 million from the state and federal governments. I am hoping that the expansion will draw more health care professionals to this area and that among them will be the retina specialist I need.
Jonathan found us a perfect house in Eureka, open and sunny, and we plan to stay here for a year to start. Even though we will be out of town for a month now and then on our travels, committing to a full year in one place is a big change for us.
I read some local news and discovered that Eureka’s best known annual event, the Kinetic Grand Championship, was underway on our first weekend in town. Artists and enthusiasts create moving sculptures, kinetic works of art. Over three days, these pedal-powered artworks race along roadways, up and down sand dunes, and with a break to attach pontoons, roll into the water, crossing the finish line around noon on Memorial Day in the center of Ferndale.
In all, these moving sculptures cover miles of roadway and coastline, starting with a circuit of the plaza in Arcata, then going out to the coast, and south toward Eureka on the first day. Day two, competitors take swim in Humboldt Bay. We caught up at the boat launch in Eureka, where a few hundred people walked around the sculptures as they lined up.
One at a time, the sculptures rolled into the water. Crew members began pedaling furiously to make headway against the stiff wind. About 500 yards later, each vehicle lumbered out of the water and continued their land journey south. At the end of the second day, pilots and co-pilots were required to camp out at Crab Beach, about halfway between Eureka and Ferndale on the coast. (We did not camp.)
L-R: Vikings crossing the Eel R., crossing the sand bar, and at the finish line in Ferndale.
On the final day, we drove to watch contestants cross the Eel River. Each sculpture had to stop on the shore, attach their pontoons/flotation devices (they are required to carry these with them) and after a longish period of adjustment, enter the water, pedaling like crazy to go upstream to the exit point.
Not everyone opted for the full competition, and a number of pieces were brought to the Eel River crossing or the Humboldt County Fairgrounds where they resumed the land portion of the journey toward the finish line.
After watching about half the entrants cross the river, we drove into Ferndale, wedged ourselves into a parking space, and watched the festivities. There was a wildly energetic band playing, led by a woman in a majorette dress wielding an oversized spatula.
Spectators were dressed in everything from street clothes to wild and crazy getups. We sat down and had a bite to eat, considering it a contribution to local fund-raising rather than a culinary achievement. By the time we got up, the first finisher was rolling down the street, having made much better time than I would have thought from the river to Ferndale. A trickle of finishers began arriving, and after admiring some of our favorites, like the tuna can, the pink lamé camel, the Viking couple, and the bumblebees, we took our leave.
This is a wonderful festival, and though they had to miss a couple of years due to Covid, it seems to be back as wild as ever. It’s a Eureka moment in Eureka.
Want to see professionally produced photos of the race? Here’s a terrific article:
Over the past couple of months we’ve considered where we’d like to live in the US. I wanted to try the East coast before making a decision about which coast we’d prefer, since coastal life is our first choice. As much as we enjoyed Virginia Beach, VA and Wilmington, NC, recent family developments convinced us that California is for us, so we’re moving to Eureka, CA for now. (I’m going to be a grandma.)
We stopped in Wheaton, IL for a few days to pack and re-pack, getting items from our storage unit, and leaving other things behind. We stayed with our friend Peggy, and had a wonderful time for such a short stay. One evening was a book discussion with our Wheaton-Glen Ellyn AAUW non-fiction book group. We all read Code Breaker, by Walter Isaacson, about the 2020 Nobel prize-winning scientist Jennifer Doudna and the development of CRISPR gene-editing. The next night was a the AAUW Spice Routes group dinner. Twice yearly, participants hold a themed potluck focusing on the cuisine of a particular region. Our theme was tapas, and we ate small plates from Spain and Portugal, from gravlax to anchovies, accompanied by flan and sangria. This was also a chance for me to catch up with friends I hadn’t seen for some time. It was a wonderful way to celebrate our impending move to new surroundings, though it reminds me how much we’ll miss our Wheaton friends.
Mid-morning, crossing the Rocky Mountains beyond Denver
Early on Saturday we headed to the airport. We flew to Denver, then to Eureka, and were in our new Airbnb by 1:30 pm (Pacific Time). It had been an early start, and by the time we unloaded our luggage, unpacked, and did a bit of shopping, the day was over and the time change had tired us out. It drizzled on and off all day, and we were reminded of how much warmer the weather had been in our previous locations.
Our new house is bright and comfortable, and we may be the first occupants after a recent renovation. We have an extra bedroom, a bit of outdoor space, and even a garage for our rental car. Airbnb owners often keep a home’s garage for personal storage, so it’s unusual to have one available.
Our house in Wilmington was full of plants, art, and household accumulation, and our Eureka house is just about the opposite, furnished, but with space to add some of our own things. Monday is Memorial Day, and everything is closed, but on Tuesday we begin the process of deciding whether to stay in this house indefinitely and looking at other housing options in the area.
As a child, our weather report regularly included the area “from Block Island to Cape Hatteras.” I wasn’t quite sure where it all was, but it sounded interesting. Since arriving in Wilmington, NC, we decided to make a short visit to see Cape Hatteras. When we sat down to plan, we found an enormous chain of narrow islands more than 100 miles long that stretches from the town of Sandbridge and Back Bay Wildlife Refuge that we visited south of Virginia Beach, to Ocracoke Island, offshore east of New Bern, NC. All this is the Outer Banks.
We decided to stay right on the bend in the chain of islands, on Hatteras Island at the Cape Hatteras Motel. We made our reservation, but a week before we were scheduled to arrive we received a call from the manager. Bad weather was due, and they expected flooding and overwash (flooding and sand on the roads). Would we like to change our reservation? We looked at the weather reports and decided to put our visit off for a week, and we were glad we did! The storm was a big Nor’easter. Strong winds pushing water north to south combined with full moon higher than average tides resulted in flooding, tons of sand deposited on roads and parking lots, and high winds that made it dangerous to go outdoors and painful when the wind sandblasts anyone in their path. This was the week that made the news when two houses in the town of Rodanthe collapsed into the ocean. That was just up the road from our motel. Six days later, the sea and wind had subsided and we went for our visit.
Since we’re in Wilmington, NC, it seemed like a good idea to take the ferry that runs from Cedar Island, NC to Ocracoke Island, drive the length of Ocracoke (about 14 miles) and take the free car ferry to Hatteras. We’d save a couple of hours of driving and see a lot of the area. I reserved a spot on the 10:30 am ferry from Cedar Island, though that meant we had to leave home no later than 7 am to check in by 10 am and not lose our reservation.
Cedar Island ferry terminal
The day came and off we went, arriving at the ferry landing at about 10:02 am, the very last car in line. The lanes weren’t full, so we hadn’t been in danger of losing our place, but people had driven quite a ways to be there. I spoke to a woman who left Chapel Hill with her family at 5:30 am to get to the ferry on time. Once we all checked in, we were told boarding would begin in 10-15 minutes. We waited, and waited. Over an hour later, I saw a couple pin down a man in white shirt and black slacks, possibly a captain, as he walked from one building to another, pointedly NOT approaching passengers. When their conversation was over, I went up and asked the couple what they found out. By now it was 11:30 am with no movement on the ferry.
There was not going to be a 10:30 am ferry. A mechanical problem that we were told earlier was fixed and only needed inspection, was a red herring. Those with reservations would be given priority on the 4:30 pm ferry. However, the ferry takes two hours. The drive down Ocracoke takes about 40 minutes, and the next ferry to Hatteras takes an hour. The earliest we’d arrive at our hotel would be around eight pm. If we drove, we’d be on the road much more of the day than we planned, but leaving Cedar Island by noon, we’d arrive at our hotel by 5:30 pm. We hit the road.
It was a very long drive. We crossed a lot of rural North Carolina, and I was intrigued by the abandoned houses sprouting greenery from windows and doors. There was also evidence of rural poverty when we mistook unpainted houses for abandoned ones.
On the last stretch of highway heading east for the shore, the wind suddenly picked up and blew so hard that I looked out the window to see if the sky was green or whether there was a funnel cloud nearby. It was dark and gusty. We outran the storm, though it caught up later. Finally, we crossed the first bridge over the Alligator River and then the Croatan Sound and Roanoke Island and made it onto Bodie Island. We turned south along the long, narrow string of islands toward Hatteras, and arrived at our motel around 5:30 pm. Though we’d spent the day sitting in the car, we were tired. We took a short walk on the beach, and had dinner at the Diamond Shoals Cafe nearby. Back in our motel room, we heard the storm breaking and stepped onto the covered deck to watch. The wind howled, rain poured down, and lightning struck in long horizontal lines over the ocean. We were lucky to have been under cover.
Cloud to cloud lightning, horizontal in the sky during the storm (Internet photo)
We saw the full moon the next morning when we got up to see the sunrise. 5:45 am is a bit earlier than I am usually awake, but it was worth it to see the sun come up over the waves and climb above the clouds. We spooked a pair of deer on our way back to the motel. I was as surprised to see them on the beach as they were to see us.
Deer scoping out our motel
Later, we visited the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, stopping along the way to look at shore birds wading in the shallow pools at the end of Lighthouse Road. We walked on the beach out toward the point where the coast changes direction, different currents mix, and the water is shallow and roiling with sand–to me this is the Cape Hatteras.
From the lighthouse we crossed the road to the Buxton Woods Trail, to see some of the inland part of the island. The path is shaded and winds through the trees. It was far too late for birds, and on a hot day, lovely to be under the trees.
Heron and egret
In the early evening we met a friend from years ago who now spends part of each year in Avon, NC, just north of Hatteras. We sat and chatted on his deck overlooking the ocean as the sun began to set, watching the waves and the birds that floated by. This was a perfect day. We moved on to have dinner at Oceana’s Bistro where they’ve invented a sort of extended tortilla cheese flat bread called a “griller.” Jonathan had the one with mushrooms, artichoke, and other things that was delicious.
With only one day left, we got busy early, getting up to drive north to the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. Unfortunately, during this time of year when birds may be nesting, a lot of the refuge is closed off to visitors and there doesn’t seem to be a place where visitors can find out what is open on any given day. We made the best of it and saw some good shore birds on the sound side of the sand spit, then crossed to the ocean side to look at some others.
Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge–Ocean side
After a stop at Scones and Muffins for sustenance, we returned to the motel and then decided to visit the local museums in Frisco, first the Native American Museum, then the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum. The Native American Museum was a labor of love created by a local man, Carl Bornfriend, who collected Native American objects wherever he found them. Now a non-profit foundation, the collection has grown to include thousands of objects. Displays line the walls and walkways at the museum and are so varied that there is something to see at every turn. Outdoors is a nature trail.
Frisco Native American Museum
Our second stop was the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum, also known as the shipwreck museum. The building is reminiscent of the skeleton of a ship, and the exhibits cover anything related to ships. The North Carolina coast deserves the graveyard name, as there are several thousand shipwrecks in the offshore waters. In addition to famous wrecks, the museum includes stories of famous sea rescues, and shows the development of maritime technology, including scuba breathing apparatus, and underwater cameras. An infusion of Covid recovery funding is allowing the museum to expand and update its exhibits.
At the Graveyard of the Atlantic museum, the exterior patio is shaped like the framework of a ship
After a late afternoon beach walk, we had dinner at Cafe Pamlico at the Inn on Pamlico Sound. The food was delicious. There was live music, and I always hesitate to sit in a room with live music in case it is too loud for conversation. When I mentioned this, we were seated far enough from the performance area that we could hear the very enjoyable playing, and still talk to one another.
We planned to take the ferry on our return trip, but when we looked at the three hours of ferry ride and the four hours of driving, it added up to another long day. By driving back the way we came, we’d give up a visit to Ocracoke Island, but get home mid-afternoon. I cancelled our ferry reservation and we packed up. The next morning, when we were already a half hour down the road, I received an email from the NC-DOT ferry people letting me know that not only was the ferry cancelled, there would be no other ferries running between Ocracoke and Cedar Island that day due to mechanical problems and Coast Guard inspections. They were sorry they would not be able to take us anywhere and we’d have to find another way to the mainland.
We might have gotten up, driven to the landing and gotten in line for the shorter (one hour) ferry, arrived on Ocracoke, driven down that island, and then found that there would be no ferry. That would have added about four hours to the four and a half hour drive. I was grateful that we had decided against the ferry.
Some shipwrecks of the Outer Banks. It really is the Graveyard of the Atlantic (Internet photo)
Cape Hatteras is an adventure. We watched lots of kite surfers along the shore, went bird watching, even watched as a tiny biplane towed a huge advertising sign over Nag’s Head and Manteo as we drove off the island. We surprised deer, and avoided getting stuck in the drifts of fine, pale sand heaped everywhere after last week’s storm. For boating, fishing, surfing, or any other water sport, Hatteras is a wonderful spot. There are miles of beaches, and though there’s hardly any beach glass, there are sea shells and smooth rocks to fit any pocket. Sunrise and sunset are a beachgoers delight. Watch out for storms, high wind, beach erosion, rip currents, and nesting wildlife, and you’ll be just fine.
Llywindatravels 2026 