8/23/2004 For the last two weeks I have been camping out in a field in Ferndale, CA. Ferndale is an interesting place in many ways; it is mostly Victorian buildings which the residents care for meticulously. I was there for the Humboldt County fair for the tird year in a row. Last year I stayed in a hotel for the first week and in a Bed and Breakfast inn for the second week. I enjoyed the bed and breakfast very much, but it and the hotel together made for a very expensive stay; so this year I decided to camp instead. I was a little nervous since camping can be a drag sometimes. But I ended up camping with some guys who work in the video department of the track and having people to commiserate with makes all the difference. As you can see from the photos it was wet and foggy for most of my stay there. The photo of the raindrops is from inside my tent around dawn on the first sunny day. There had been a fine mist falling all evening and overnight so I was glad to see the sun come out.
I always have a lot of time to read and hike when I am in Ferndale because for the first half of the fair the workload is relatively light. I spent time with people from the track at a bonfire and went hiking in Russ Park which is right next to town. Although Humboldt county is famous for redwood trees there are only a few small ones in Ferndale because of its immediate proximity to the ocean. I did manage to visit the big trees at least for a little while. It is easy for me to forget just how big they are sometimes when looking around at second growth clumps and other species. I read an article in The New York Times this past april about the limitations of tree plumbing and how they were studied in redwoods. The needles of a redwood are about 3/4 inch long near the ground but become increasingly smaller as you progress upwards to the 350+ foot high top. As I walked around In the groves I scanned the ground and found a branch that had obviously fallen from near the top of a tall tree. The needles were less than an eighth inch long and there was a little cone forming at the tip of each branchlet. I find all this soo fascinating.
I sent Dory a couple postcards while I was there; they all showed sunny and bright scenes of the "Victorian Village" which didn't quite fit in with the mental pictures that she was getting from me over the phone of camping in the mist and cold wind and fog. It's funny; fog can be so beautiful but I am usually unhappy to see it when I wake up in the morning because of the dampness and the darkness of it.
I have a recommendation to make to everyone who is at all interested in hiking and backpacking. I found a book called "beyond backpacking: a guide to lightweight hiking" by Ray Jardine. I spent the better part of my free time while I was there reading through it and found the book to be extremely useful and informative. It has so many little gems of knowledge that I am trying to convince Dory to read it even though she wont even think about going backpacking.
8/23/2004 For the last two weeks I have been camping out in a field in Ferndale, CA. Ferndale is an interesting place in many ways; it is mostly Victorian buildings which the residents care for meticulously. I was there for the Humboldt County fair for the tird year in a row. Last year I stayed in a hotel for the first week and in a Bed and Breakfast inn for the second week. I enjoyed the bed and breakfast very much, but it and the hotel together made for a very expensive stay; so this year I decided to camp instead. I was a little nervous since camping can be a drag sometimes. But I ended up camping with some guys who work in the video department of the track and having people to commiserate with makes all the difference. As you can see from the photos it was wet and foggy for most of my stay there. The photo of the raindrops is from inside my tent around dawn on the first sunny day. There had been a fine mist falling all evening and overnight so I was glad to see the sun come out.