- thurs july 4
- 6:50am: left for marina food’s parking lot with luggage. a backpack and a duffel each person, plus an extra backpack for food = approximately 11 bags. GO US. waited around to board the bus.
- “dao yiou” means tour guide. our dao yiou talked a lot. a lot. a lot. he talked about the history of california and of the vineyards and about the 1849 gold rush a lot. i asked jenny what year the 76ers stood for and she said “1776…!!!” and i said “oh yeah, that.”
- vineyard. some people tasted wine. i ate peaches that we brought. lots of grapes.
- lots of driving. bus ok, 57 people or thereabouts, seats a little small. saw redwoods. like…
- the drive-thru tree: huge redwood, they made a squarish hole through it, watched people drive through
- the “world’s largest tree-house” or “world famous tree-house” or whatever you feel like calling it: a huge redwood whose inside was burnt out in a fire, creating a huge one-room “house” and they had a gift shop that opened into it.
- ate lunch at some point during the day at burger king.
- at eureka: got to red lion hotel. ate dinner there with jenny’s family. i went wandering outside the hotel with my brother and sister and dad at about 9:30, looking for fireworks. it was very cold. we saw several different shows that went on across the bay–i don’t know what cities are across what bay from eureka, ca, but there is a bay somewhere there–and finally, there was one on our side of the bay after 10pm. cold cold cold, but worth it. my favorites were these hoops that opened out and had different-colored sparks flying out from either side of the hoop. i also liked these massive two-layered ones that looked like two traditional fireworks superimposed upon one another. i liked it. couldn’t hear music, but could still “feel it vibrating your lungs” or however amanda described her 4th of july experience. go america, yeah.
- slept ok. conditioner at red lion hotel smells like roses. neutrogena.
- friday july 5
- very cold. i cannot remember if the trees of mystery were in oregon or in california. big paul bunyan out in front. went on trail, read about redwoods. redwoods are so pretty. the “trees of mystery” are in this redwood grove that native americans didn’t like to go into because they said it was where a lot of spirits lived–the redwoods there grow funny. there was a gondola that took you to the top of the mountain and you could see more mountains on one side and the sea on the other. at that point it was still mostly cloudy, but it was quite nice nonetheless. at the end i knocked on the huge paul bunyan statue and it said “are you knocking?” and i was absolutely delighted. “what are you made of?” i asked, and he said “why, it’s all flesh and bone!!!” and i was further delighted. there must have been a mic and speaker and people watching from a window in the gift shop thing and stuff. it was great. silly.
[when do i need to write /li at the end of a list item? i was trying to test it in this half-finished post and sometimes i included it and sometimes i didn’t. i did put a /ul and a ul before “friday july 5” but it’s showing up in july 4th’s sublist. funny.
I love your LJ Icon. Did you sketch it yourself?
thanks! my roommate sketched it! permanent pen on cardboard, 2001 hahaha. it’s great =)