Even though Dan is only working part-time, his work schedule is so weird (Fridays, Mondays and Tuesdays) he never has more than two days in a row to take off. So for our anniversary trip to the coast, we decided to leave Wednesday morning and come back Friday morning (he doesn’t work until Friday afternoon.)
Which would have worked perfectly, only I happened to be twenty weeks pregnant the week of our anniversary, and there were a whole heck of a lot of medical-y things my doctor’s office wanted to do to me during that week. Oh, and they wanted to do them Wednesday and Friday, leaving only Thursday unscathed. Thankfully my appointment Wednesday was at 10am, which left the rest of the day for Fun Times, but my Friday appointment was (gasp) 8am. If we decided to stay both days, we were going to have a verrry early morning ahead of us. We decided to play it by ear and left on our trip without solid plans.
On Wednesday, our actual anniversary, we left right after Doctor’s Appt #1 (where we got to see Baby Boy being adorable) and drove to the coast. It’s a 4ish hour drive on very windy, scary roads, but it’s pretty so that helps make up for the death-defying moments, I guess. Dan was driving, and I did almost get us killed by encouraging him to run a random red light in the middle of nowhere – what can I say? I thought it was a four-way stop kind of thing – but it turned out to be a construction site with a one-way road and traffic coming the wrong direction. Luckily there was a shoulder to veer into… Again, oops!
Sadly, our hotel wasn’t quite as nice as others in the chain we’ve stayed at in the past. It was really tiny, kind of worn down, and located directly next to a McDonald’s drive through (nothing like hearing people order burgers all night!) Oh, and our bed was made of cardboard and our pillows (two tiny, tiny pillows) were made of paper. So that part kind of sucked, but at least it was clean, and the TV got cable. If we come back, I’ll definitely pony up the extra $10 per night to stay in one of the many nicer hotels surrounding our little dingy one.
Clam Beach, as depicted by my cell phone... oops, left my camera at the hotel : P
When we drove into town, the very first thing I wanted to do was go to the beach. Yay beach! Even though it was only 60°F or so, the sun was shining and it was actually quite nice (the wind, on the other hand, was mean.) I had two beaches on my Things to Do list, and Clam Beach was closest, so that’s where we went. It was gorgeous! Hardly anyone was there, and there was miles and miles of unblemished sand (which seemed a lot less beautiful once I realized walking miles over said sand while pregnant and off balanced is no small feat. Guess that was my workout for the day.) There were really cool sand dune ‘caves’ (aka dents in the ground) everywhere that people used for their picnic base, or to fly kites from. I wanted to be closer to the water, so we trekked down to the packed sand and found a log for a little bit of wind shelter.
My hair looks all wonky from the wind, I swear!
I spent a good half hour in the water (only up to my knees, because 60 is not that warm), chasing waves and collecting pretty rocks, until these little swimming things started biting my feet. Then I retreated to the towels with Dan, where we watched a baby horse do very silly things – there was a stable nearby, and the owner was trying to train him. At one point he tried to come over and be friends with us, but he thought that meant sitting on Dan, and the owner wasn’t too keen on that (neither were we – even though he was a baby, he had to weigh 200-300 lbs.) I did get to nuzzle his cute little head, though. :)
Dan loves having his picture taken, as you can tell
After the beach we were hungry, so we headed into Arcata to hunt down an Italian restaurant. We ended up at Abruzzi, where we ate delicious pasta and I tried not to burn myself on the candle-lamp on the table (I kept forgetting it was on fire… it looked like a lamp!) There was an ice cream store in the same building, Bon Boniere, where we ate The Most Delicious Ice Cream Ever (it was all homemade!) We walked around town a little bit, looking at the cute stores (all closed, since it was evening)… and discovering that pot smoke makes me sick when I’m pregnant. Perfect time to visit Humboldt County, huh? (I just had to give all smoky clouds and be-dreadlocked individuals a wide berth. It’s not personal, I swear.)
Pretty trees! (Dan took this)
The next day was cloudy and cooler, and though it wasn’t so great for the beach, it was the perfect day to go hiking in the redwoods. We drove over to Arcata Community Forest, which has nearly 800 acres of gorgeous forest and is all owned and maintained by the city of Arcata. Since it’s not a national park, there are a lot more opportunities for recreation (lots of bike, horseback riding, and even dog trails) and it was super clean – seriously, I didn’t see a single speck of litter, even in the hollowed-out trees that seem to make natural trash cans. Color me impressed!
Baby & me in the redwoods - I'm wearing Dan's jacket because mine won't zip over my belly, lol
We wandered through a city day camp to find a trail that went into the forest itself, and finally found one that didn’t look too taxing. Luckily it was a fairly short loop (maybe 1.5 or 2 miles?) otherwise I think I would have died out there – it was soo humid, I had to pee about halfway through, and my balance and breathing were pretty crappy (once again, thanks baby.) (Well, I would have hated the humidity either way, so I guess I can’t blame baby for that.) Also luckily, it was beautiful, so I didn’t mind the discomforts (too much.) We saw lots of huge hollow trees, a family of banana slugs, and a tree growing out and over a ten-foot stump – oh, and an adorable brindle French bulldog. :)
Dan in one of the giant stumps
Oh, Dan played in lots of things too. I mostly tried to keep breathing, and took pictures of him playing in (and on) things.
Now he's on a stump...
…and eventually we made it back to the main part of the park, which was still full of day-camp kids (and random kids playing on the playground. Oh, and dogs too – there are a LOT of dogs in this town.)
This is the crazy tree-growing-over-a-stump I talked about earlier - weird! (Dan took this one too)
Since it was cold (well, not in the forest, but in the rest of town) and looked like rain, we decided against the beach and instead went back into Arcata. Humboldt State has a teeny-tiny natural history museum, and museums are always good for rainy days, so we went to check it out. They had a ton of cool fossils, bones, and various other body parts from ridiculous animals, plus some great exhibits of local flora, fauna and animal life (the crabs of California part? Okay, that scared me a little. Some of those things look like evil space spiders!) We spent some time communing with a hive of bees (inside a plexiglass box, so you could see everything), though we never did locate the queen. I also really liked all the hands-on exhibits – even though I’m a big girl and know not to touch museum-y things, I remember how hard to keep my hands to myself as a kid.
We were getting hungry, and even though we were in a new town that I’m sure was full of unique restaurants, Dan felt like Denny’s so to Denny’s we went. (And it was delicious too!) After that it was getting kind of late in the day, and it wasn’t warming up, so we made the executive decision to drive back tonight rather than staying another night and leaving in the wee hours. I made sure our extra day in the hotel wouldn’t go to waste by taking a nap, then we packed up the car and were off. Since I was the one driving, I have to say I was thankful to be driving those scary roads when I was fully conscious (and so was Dan, so he could talk to me), something I couldn’t guarantee for a 4am trip. (And yes, this time I actually stopped at the Random Construction Stoplight.)
Even thought it was but a tiny trip, I’m still glad that Dan and I got to do something fun and out of the ordinary this summer, especially since once baby comes we may be housebound for a long while. (Although I’m convinced I can be the kind of parent that travels with their kids – both Dan and I traveled ALL THE TIME when we were little – there’s really no predicting how baby will react. And, well, the money thing too. So we’ll just see how it goes I guess.)
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