Arcata
Hey, I made it. I'm currently ensconced -- ensconced! -- at the Hotel Arcata right off The Plaza, a hotel so quaint that they have you use small, flat, carved pieces of metal as "keys." It smells fine and the wireless works, so that's 80% satisfaction right there.
I'm originally from Santa Cruz, CA, a small costal town where Interstate Hippie meets Highway Dippy, so I'm right at home here. The Plaza in question is a little park in the middle of approximately fourteen independent bookstores and twenty-eight independent record shops, and a great Italian restaurant called Mazzotti's that reader Christopher Halskov recommended to me. Thanks, reader Christopher Halskov!
Do you know how in certain parts of cities every shop that can possibly justify it has an advertisement for international phone cards in the window? It's like that here, except instead of phone cards they have the Buddha.
I haven't decided what to do with my evening. Logic would dictate that I explore the night life of the area, but cable!
A note from my trip up here. At one point south of Eureka on 101, a sign explained that the lack of trash on the road was thanks to "Evangelical Fundamentalist Christians." All of them, I guess. Then, later on, I passed a section of highway cleaned by "The Humboldt Area Pagan Network." Isn't this how holy wars get started? With clean highways?
Anyhow, gotta go. I am told that there are people who love the Eighties.